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EFFECTS OF RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING ON ACHIEVEMENT, INTEREST AND PERCEIVED SELF-EFFICACY IN READING
COMPREHENSION OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
BY
UROKO, JONAS EJIKE PG/Ph.D/06/40662
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
MAY, 2010
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CERTIFICATION PAGE
Uroko, Jonas Ejike, a postgraduate student in the Department of Educational
Foundations with Registration Number PG/Ph.D/06/40662, has satisfactorily
completed the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Educational
Psychology. The work embodied in this thesis report is original and has not been
submitted in part or full for any other Diploma or Degree of this or any other
University.
------------------------------- ----------------------- UROKO, JONAS EJIKE DR. U. N. EZE CANDIDATE SUPERVISOR
3
APPROVAL PAGE
This Thesis has been approved for the Department of Educational
Foundations, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
BY -------------------------- --------------------------------- DR. U. N. EZE PROF. IKE IFELUNNI SUPERVISOR HEAD OF DEPARTMENT ---------------------------------- ----------------------------------- PROF. G. C. UNACHUKWU DR. D. U. NGWOKE EXTERNAL EXAMINER INTERNAL EXAMINER
---------------------------------------- PROF. S. A. EZEUDU
DEAN, FACULTY OF EDUCATION
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DEDICATION
This work is especially dedicated to my lovely wife, Uroko, Loretto Ngozi
and to my lovely children – Chidiebere, Chukwudindu and Chiemerie.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The researcher is indebted to all those who contributed in various ways to make
the production of this work a reality.
First among them is Dr. Uchenna Eze, the researcher’s supervisor, whose fatherly
concern, constant encouragement, invaluable advice and constructive criticisms
throughout the period of investigation, brought the work to this final form. God’s
immeasurable reward awaits him and his family. The researcher is also grateful to Dr. F.
A. Okwor, Dr. (Mrs.) E. C. Umeano, Dr. K. O. Usman and Dr. (Mrs.) J. N. Igbo for their
invaluable contributions to the success of the work.
The researcher’s profound gratitude and appreciation go to Prof. D. N. Ezeh,
whose invaluable contributions are too numerous to mention. May God reward him and
his family. The researcher’s special appreciation goes to Prof. T. A. Nwachukwu, Late
Lady Dr. F. N. Anyanwu, Prof. E. D. Ozoji, Dr. D. U. Ngwoke, Dr. (Mrs.) L. N.
Onuigbo, Dr. (Mrs.) J. O. Chukwu, Dr. (Mrs.) T. Offorka, Dr. (Mrs.) Ann Okolo, Prof. N.
Ogbonnaya and Prof. Ik Ifelunni, who supported him in the course of the work. The
researcher thanks little Miss Ifeyinwa Eze for proffering help during the typing of the
work.
The researcher’s profound gratitude goes to his brothers: Joseph, Osmund, Boris,
Silas and sisters: Roseline, Jacintha and Louisa for providing the financial and
motivational spirit that pushed this work on.
God has ultimate power. Special thanks go to Him for all His mercies.
Uroko, Jonas Ejike University of Nigeria, Nsukka
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE- - - - - - - - - - I CERTIFICATION PAGE- - - - - - - - - II APPROVAL PAGE- - - - - - - - - III DEDICATION- - - - - - - - - - IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS- - - - - - - - V TABLE OF CONTENTS- - - - - - - - - VI LIST OF TABLES- - - - - - - - - - VIII LIST OF FIGURES - - - - - - - - - IX LIST OF APPENDICES- - - - - - - - - X ABSTRACTS- - - - - - - - - - XII CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION - - - - - - 1
Background of the Study - - - - - - - - 1
Statement of the Problem - - - - - - - - 9
Purpose of the Study - - - - - - - - 10
Significance of the Study - - - - - - - - 11
Scope of the Study - - - - - - - - 14
Research Questions - - - - - - - - - 15
Hypotheses - - - - - - - - - - 16
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE - - - - 17
Conceptual Framework - - - - - - - 18
Concept of Reading Comprehension - - - - - - 18
Concept of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring - - - - - - 26
Concept of Achievement - - - - - - - - - - 31
Concept of Interest - - - - - - - - - - 35
Concept of Perceived Self-efficacy - - - - - - 44
Relationship among Reciprocal peer tutoring, Interest, Self-efficacy
and Achievement - - - - - - - - - 55
Theoretical Framework - - - - - - - 56
Vygotsky’s Social Cognitive Theory - - - - - - 56
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory - - - - - - 62
Self-determination Theory (SDT) of Motivation and Interest - - - 66
Review of Empirical Studies - - - - - - - 71
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Studies Related to Reciprocal Peer Tutoring and Achievement - - 71
Studies Related to Self-efficacy and Achievement - - - - 77
Gender as a Factor in Achievement - - - - - - 81
Summary of Review of Literature - - - - - - 84
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHOD - - - - 88
Design of the Study - - - - - - - - - 91
Area of Study - - - - - - - - - 91
Population of the Study - - - - - - - - - 92
Sample and Sampling Techniques - - - - - - 93
Instruments for the Study - - - - - - - - 94
Validation of the Instruments - - - - - - - 97
Reliability of the Instruments - - - - - - - 99
Development of Instructional Programmes - - - - - 101
Experimental Procedure - - - - - - - - 103
Control of Extraneous Variables - - - - - - - 107
Method of Data Analysis - - - - - - - - 109
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS - - - - - - - 110
Summary of Major Findings of the Study - - - - - - 126
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION OF RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS, EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUMMARY- - - 128
Discussion of the Findings- - - - - - - - - 128
Conclusions- - - - - - - - - - - 144
Educational Implications of the Findings- - - - - - 145
Recommendations- - - - - - - - - - 147
Limitations of the Study- - - - - - - - - 149 Suggestions for Further Studies- - - - - - - - 150 Summary of the Study- - - - - - - - - 150 REFERENCES - - - - - - - - - 155 APPENDICES - - - - - - - - - 168
LIST OF TABLES
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Table Title Page Table 1: The Experimental Design - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 91 Table 2: The Test Blue Print for Developing the Test of Comprehension
(TOC) Form I ---------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 95 Table 3: The Test Blue Print for Developing the Test of Comprehension
(TOC) Form II - - - - -- - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------ 96 Table 4: The Students’ Pretest and Post-test Mean Scores and Standard
Deviation in Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy in Test of Comprehension (TOC) - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------- 110
Table 5: 2-Way Analysis of Covariance of Students’ Post Treatment Achievement Scores on Test of Comprehension - - - - - - - - - - --- 112 Table 6: 2-Way Analysis of Covariance of Students’ Post Treatment
Interest Rating on Interest Rating Scale--- - - -- ------------------ 113 Table 7: 2 – Way Analysis of Covariance of Students’ Post Treatment
Self-efficacy Rating on Self-efficacy Rating Scale - ------------- 114 Table 8: Pretest and Post test Mean Scores and Standard Deviation in Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy by Gender - - - - - - - - 116 Table 9: Pretest and Post test Mean Scores and Standard Deviation in Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy by Gender Grouping - - -119 Table 10: Post test Mean Scores and Standard Deviation in Achievement,
Interest and Self-efficacy by Treatment and Gender -- - -- - - -- - -123
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Title Page Figure 1: Diagrammatical Representation of the Relationship among RPT,
Interest Perceived Self-efficacy and Achievement ---- --- ---- 55
Figure 2: Continuum of Self-determination --- ---- ---- ---- ---- ------ 67 Figure 3: Diagrammatical Representation of the Theoretical Framework -- --71
LIST OF APPENDICES
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Appendices Title Page A. Pre-treatment Training Programme - - - - - - - - …- - - - - - - - - - - - -168 B-D Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Strategy Lesson Plans - - - - - - - - - - - -178-189 E-G Conventional Reading Strategy - - - - - - -- - - - ----------------------190-195 H: Letter to Test of Comprehension Validators - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - ----196 I The Test Blue Print for Developing the Test of Comprehension
(TOC)Form I----------------------------------------------------------------- 197
J. The Test Blue Print for Developing the Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form II ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 197
K Guide for Validation of Test of Comprehension Forms I and II - - -- - 198 L. Validation of Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form I - -- - - - - - - - - 199 M. Validation of Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form II - - - - - - - - - - - 199 N. Test of Comprehension Form I -- - -- -- -- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - 200 O. Scoring Guide for Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form I -- - - - - - -- - 207 P. Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form II - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - - - 209 Q. Scoring Guide for Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form II - -- - - - -- 216 R. The Calculation of the Standard Deviation and the Variance of the
Total Scores of Test of Comprehension Form I - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - 218
S. Computation of Stability Estimate for Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form I using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient - -- 220
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T. Scores For Computation of Kendall’s Co-efficient of Concordance --- 221 U. The Calculation of the Standard Deviation and the Variance of the
Total Scores of Test of Comprehension Form II - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - 222
V Computation of Stability Estimate for Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form II using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient--- 224
W Scores for computation of Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance - 225 X Computation of the Measure of Equivalence/Relationship between
Test of Comprehension (TOC) Forms I and II, using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient -------------------------------- 226
Y Letter to Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale Validators ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 227
Z Guide for Validation of Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale ------------------------------------------------------------------- 227 Za Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale (SRCIRS) ---- 228
Zb The Calculation of the Standard Deviation and the Variance of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale ---------------- 230
Zc Computation of the Stability Estimate for Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient --------------------------------------------------------- 232
Zd Letter to Students’ Self-efficacy Rating Scale Validators ------------------ 233
Ze Guide for Validation of Students’ Self-efficacy Rating Scale ---------------234 Zf Students’ Self-efficacy Rating Scale ------------------------------------------- 234
Zg The Calculation of the Standard Deviation and the Variance of the Self-efficacy Rating Scale ------------------------------------------------------ 236
Zh Computation of the Stability Estimate for Students’ Self-efficacy Rating Scale using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient ---------------238 Zi List of Schools used for the Study and the Distrbution of the Subjects into the Experimental and Control Groups ---------------------------------------------239
ABSTRACTS
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This study was carried out to investigate the effects of training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy on achievement, interest and perceived self-efficacy in reading comprehension of senior secondary school students. The influence of gender and gender groupings on the achievement, interest and self-efficacy of students were explored. The effect of interaction of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender on achievement, interest and self-efficacy was also examined. Four research questions were generated and four null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study was a non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design, involving one treatment and one control group. A total of 174 senior secondary class two students from four co-educational senior secondary schools in Obollo Afor Education Zone made up the sample for the study. In each school, one intact class was randomly selected and the intact classes were also randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. Three instruments namely: Test of Comprehension (TOC) forms I and II, Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale, Students’ Self-efficacy Rating Scale and two training programmes namely: Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Strategy Lesson Plan and Conventional Lesson Plan, were developed, by the researcher . The reciprocal peer tutoring strategy lesson plan was used for the experimental group while the control group received training using the conventional teaching method. The data obtained were analyzed using mean scores, standard deviation and 2 x 2 analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The major findings of the study were that intervention using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy significantly improved the achievement, interest and perceived self-efficacy in reading comprehension of senior secondary school students; that gender had no significant influence on the achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students based on the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy; that gender grouping was not a significant factor in the achievement, interest and self-efficacy of students in reading comprehension; that the interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender on achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students was not significant. A major educational implication of the findings was that training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy improves achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension and this suggests that teachers would achieve better results if trained on how to use RPT strategy. It was thus recommended that emphasis should be given to equipping students with the relevant skills in using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and that teacher preparation institutions should incorporate RPT strategy in the relevant areas of the curriculum units and expose both the pre-service and in-service teachers to this strategy learning.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Reading comprehension is very important in the life of any learner. It helps
in promoting higher academic achievement. Reading for comprehension helps
students to construct meaning from texts, as well as to examine and extend the
meaning of the text (Presley, 2006). Reading, essentially involves the process of
encoding and processing information by relating incoming information to the
already stored information or ideas. It is an attempt at understanding a text that is
read, or the process of constructing meaning from a text. Presley concluded that
reading for comprehension is not something that happens after reading; it is the
thinking done before, during and after reading.
The need to read for comprehension permeates all the school subjects in the
social sciences, humanities and the sciences. For students therefore, reading for
comprehension is not just for pleasure but to be able to understand information for
proper adjustment in the environment (Onuigbo, 2008).
Success in school requires that learners read for comprehension. However,
evidence abounds of poor academic achievement among all categories of students
in Nigeria and Obollo Afor Education Zone in particular. This situation has
continued to create concerns in the minds of teachers, parents, curriculum experts
and evaluators (Ene, 2002). The trend of poor achievement in different school
subjects has been confirmed by the recent West African Examinations Councils’
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(WAEC) Chief Examiners’ Reports for the years 2000 to 2008.. These reports
show that students’ achievements were poor in many of the subjects. For instance,
in the Resume of Chief Examiners’ Report for Nigeria (2002), it was reported that
the candidates in the May/June West African Senior School Certificate
examination achieved poorly in English Language, French, Igbo Language,
Literature-in-English Language, Christian Religious Knowledge, Financial
Accounting, Typewriting, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, General Mathematics,
Auto-Mechanics, Metalwork 2, Woodwork 2, Technical Drawing 2.
In the WAEC Chief Examiners’ (2004) report, it was reported that
“candidates’ achievements were poor in English Language, French, Literature-in-
English 2, Geography 1B, Geography 2, Visual Art 3, Financial Accounting 2,
Typewriting, Agricultural Science 1, Agricultural Science 2, Biology 1, Biology 2,
Chemistry 1, Mathematics 2 and Woodworks 3” (p1). The same trend continued in
the WAEC Chief Examiners’ reports for 2005 where candidates’ poor
achievements were reported in Literature-in-English, Agricultural Science 2, Home
Management 2, Foods and Nutrition 2, and Woodwork 2 (WAEC, 2005).
The weaknesses of the candidates were traced to inability to read,
comprehend and answer the questions correctly. These made candidates to provide
answers that were wrong. The problem was more obvious in comprehension and
summary exercises in English Language where they were required to read and
draw inferences since the answers were not given. The reports have it that
candidates lost a lot of marks as a result of lifting “seeming answers” from the
15
passage, and that many candidates were yet to come to grips with the skills of
comprehension (WAEC, 2005: 86). Out of a total number of 252, 343 students
who sat for the English Language in 2001 May/June Senior Secondary School
Certificate Examination, about thirty five percent (35%) of the candidates had
credits. Thirty four percent (34%) failed woefully and thirty one percent (31%) had
ordinary passes. The results of the West African Examinations Councils (WAEC)
of November 2006 examinations were, to say the least, disheartening. They
indicated that only 48, 966 candidates, representing 11.6% of the 423, 518
candidates who sat for the examinations obtained five credits including
Mathematics and English Language, which is the basic requirement for admission
into Nigerian Universities. Out of the successful number, 25,144 were science
oriented, 4,846 were social science oriented while 18,976 were Arts candidates.
Another 19,511 candidates, representing 4.63% of the total candidates, also
obtained five credits without the required Mathematics and English Language. This
precludes them from admission into most Nigerian Universities.
These figures of poor achievement in the November 2006 WASC
examinations represent a further drop from the achievement of candidates in the
May/June 2006 version of the examination. In that examination 15 percent of
1,184, 384 candidates who sat for the examination passed well enough to obtain
university admission. Only 177, 800 candidates obtained credits in English and
Mathematics. These uninspiring achievements in the SSCE examinations are
16
causes for concern. All these go to a large extent to reveal that reading for
comprehension is a major problem that should be addressed
A number of conferences and workshops have been organized with a view to
addressing the problem of reading comprehension in secondary schools (Ene,
2002). As a result, a number of strategies have been recommended for teaching so
that students can comprehend what they read. These include: Guided teaching
method (Dagoli, 1999); Use of games (Umoh, 2001); Cloze Instructional Approach
(Ene, 2002); Ethnomathematics Approach (Kurumeh, 2004); English for Academic
Purpose – EAP (Oluikpe, 2004); Enquiry-Discovery method (Ekpo, 2006); Use of
ICT in the classroom (Olorundare, 2006). All these recommended approaches look
quite interesting in their theoretical orientation, but evidence shows that the
problems are still prevalent, as could be seen from the WAEC (2000 -2008) Chief
Examiners’ reports.
Evidence emanating from Western Europe tends to suggest that reciprocal
peer tutoring (RPT) has the potential of helping students to understand what they
read. According to Esteve (2005), reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) could be defined
as a learning situation where students take turns acting as the tutors and the tutees
for instruction or review of academic material. In this case, students exchange roles
during tutoring session, both giving and receiving academic assistance while the
teacher supervises rather than participate in the intervention. The students dialogue
among themselves as each learner acts in response to another. The dialogue is
usually structured by the use of four strategies, sometimes known as the Fabulous
17
Four (Oczkus, 2003), which are predicting, clarifying, questioning and
summarizing. The goal of reciprocal peer tutoring is to use discussion to enhance
students’ reading comprehension, develop self-regulatory and monitoring skills,
and achieve overall improvement in motivation (Allen, 2003).
Pigott, Fantuzzo, Heggie and Clement, (1984) developed and tested
reciprocal peer tutoring for children with academic needs. In this procedure,
students are assembled in groups of two or more and are trained to work together
to prompt, monitor and evaluate each other, while working toward group goals.
The students alternate between the roles of tutor and tutee in groups. Students work
together in the groups to achieve established goals or rewards that are contingent
upon group achievement. RPT requires that the students earn points for correctly
responding to academic task. RPT requires each member of the group to contribute
to the attainment of the goal, and ensures that no one person can be responsible for
the group success (Esteve 2005).
Reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) is based on Vygotsky’s (1978) social
cognitive theory which emphasizes the role of social interaction (dialogue) in the
development of cognition. Vygotsky believed that thinking aloud and discussion of
thoughts aid clarification and revision of thinking and learning. Vygotsky’s theory
of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is believed to be critical in identifying
appropriate text and scaffolding activities to support student success (Gallowey,
2001). Vygotsky (1978: 86) explained ZPD to mean “…the distance between the
actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the
18
level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult
guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”.
Though reciprocal peer tutoring has some research evidence in support of its
potential effectiveness in some western countries (Fantuzzo, King & Heller, 1992;
Malome & McLanghlm, 1997; Fisher, 2001; Allen, 2003; Oczkus, 2003; Esteve,
2005), little studies seem to be available here in Nigeria. Therefore, it is important
that this strategy be tried out in Obollo Afor Education Zone to determine the
extent of its effectiveness in improving the reading comprehension achievement of
secondary school students.
In adopting reciprocal peer tutoring as an instructional strategy, other
observed factors that can influence the students’ participation in the tutor/tutee
procedure such as interest, perceived self-efficacy and gender need to be
addressed. Interest as viewed by Nekang (2004) is an emotionally oriented
behaviour trait, which determines students’ energy and enthusiasm in tackling
educational programmes or other activities. Okoye (1998) looked at interest as a
kind of feeling which one has for something which is valuable and beneficial.
Harbor-Peters (2002) also defined interest as:
subjective feeling of intentness or curiosity over something. The interest in a particular thing is a feeling manifested in an activity. Interest is a tendency to become absorbed in an experience and to continue in it. It is the zeal or willingness to participate in an activity from which one derives some pleasure (p. 34).
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Interest is therefore a necessary ingredient before learning can take place; for a
child is bound to pay attention as a lesson goes on if such a child is interested in
the particular subject.
However, studies carried out in Nigeria have revealed high failure rate and
relatively small proportion of students’ interest in subjects that require reading for
comprehension (Ezugwu & Agwagah 2000; Harbor-Peters 2002). Students could
be more comfortable when they interact with peers than when they are threatened
by the presence of a teacher or an adult. Working alone with peers may generate
interest among students, therefore, it is important to determine the extent RPT can
affect students’ interest in reading for comprehension since it is learner centered.
Research studies have indicated that self-efficacy is an important factor in
school achievement (Friedman, 1998). Perceived self-efficacy is defined as
people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of
achievement that exercise influence over events that affect their lives (Bandura,
1997). Perceived self-efficacy can operationally be looked at as people’s beliefs in
their capabilities to exercise control over their own functioning and over events
that affect their lives. Beliefs in personal efficacy affect life choices, level of
motivation, quality of functioning, resilience to adversity and vulnerability to stress
and depression. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate
themselves and behave. Schunk and Zimmerman (1997) maintained that compared
with students who doubt their learning capabilities, those who have a sense of
efficacy for particular tasks participate more readily, work harder, persist longer
20
when they encounter difficulties, and achieve at a higher level. Students are
reluctant to engage in activities they believe will lead to negative outcomes. This
may explain why some students drop out of school and even when they remain in
school, they avoid examinations, since they believe that they cannot make good
grades. It is therefore important to determine the extent RPT can enhance the self-
efficacy beliefs of secondary school students and success in school academic
activities. According to Bandura (2000), if students have experienced success in a
domain, they are likely to have higher self-efficacy in that domain.
Another area that has been of interest to researchers is the issue of gender on
reading achievement of students. While some research studies showed evidence of
girls’ superiority over boys in reading (Viadero, 1998; Umoh, 2001; Coley 2001 &
Newkirt cited in Onuigbo, 2008), some studies reported that boys achieved better
(Okeke, 1990 & Harbor-Peters, 1990). Following these inconsistencies, this work
seeks to contribute in resolving this controversy on gender as it affects reading
comprehension achievement. The finding of the study may reveal which gender
achieves better. In addition, the study would go further to compare the different
gender groupings and their effect on students’ reading achievement, interest and
self-efficacy in reading comprehension. The tacit assumption in Obollo Afor
Education Zone is that males are superior to females in everything that counts
(Ugwu, 2006). Since reciprocal peer tutoring involves leading in turn, one wonders
whether the socio-cultural influences that expose males to different problem
solving situations and place females in a subordinate position would affect the
21
achievement of the different gender groups involved in the RPT. Therefore, the
study examined how different gender groupings: males only group, females only
group and mixed gender groupings would affect their reading achievement, interest
and self-efficacy based on RPT instruction. These were the driving forces that
motivated this study.
Statement of the Problem
Reading for comprehension has been indicated to be very important in the
life of any student. It is important in academic achievement as it helps students to
construct meaning from texts as well as to examine and extend the meaning of the
text. Yet the prevailing problem in Nigeria is that the achievement of students in
the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations has been declining steadily.
Teachers, parents, curriculum experts and evaluators are worried, especially when
the poor achievement has been blamed on inadequate reading comprehension
skills. It is believed that if the reading comprehension achievement of students in
the SSSCE remains like this, it will affect both the economic and technological
growth of Nigeria. Evidence emanating from Western countries tends to suggest
that reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) has the potential for helping to initiate and
sustain the interest of students and promote their self-efficacy belief and
consequently improve their reading comprehension achievement. How RPT would
affect the achievement, interest and self-efficacy belief in reading comprehension
22
of Nigerian students who operate in a different socio-cultural environment is yet to
be determined.
Therefore, the problem of this study put in a question form is: how would
reciprocal peer tutoring affect the achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of Senior Secondary School class II students?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study was to explore empirically the effects of reciprocal
peer tutoring on the achievement, interest and perceived self-efficacy of senior
secondary school students in reading comprehension.
This study specifically sought to:
1. Determine the differential effect of reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) and
conventional teaching strategies on (a) achievement (b) interest and (c) self-
efficacy in reading comprehension of senior secondary students.
2. Find out the influence of gender on (a) achievement (b) interest and (c) self-
efficacy in reading comprehension of students based on RPT strategy.
3. Determine the effect of different gender groupings on (a) achievement, (b)
interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
4. Find out the interaction effect of RPT strategy and gender on the (a)
achievement (b) interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of
students.
23
Significance of the Study
The significance of the study derives both from the theoretical and practical
basis of the findings of the study. The study would be of relevance to students,
teachers, government, authors, curriculum planners and researchers, when
published.
To the students, the study may reveal whether the strategies employed in
reciprocal peer tutoring such as predicting, clarifying, questioning and
summarizing, can improve the achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of students. The students who receive instruction using reciprocal
peer tutoring approach may become better learners. These RPT strategies could
help them to integrate and construct meaning from the texts as well as examine and
extend the meaning of the texts, as they bring the already existing schema to bear
on what they read. When the students see relationship between their use of RPT
strategies and their improved achievement in reading comprehension, they would
be motivated to learn. The students would develop interest and learn better since
they know that the process of learning affects the product of learning. Their
awareness of these processes they use in learning would facilitate their transfer of
these strategies across various tasks and settings. These students would therefore
not attribute their achievement to luck or fate, but would rather see the need to
adopt predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing skills employed in
reciprocal peer tutoring in their independent studies and in their examinations.
They would realize that their inability to read and comprehend large volume of
24
materials is as a result of ineffective learning strategies. This would encourage
them to cultivate high sense of self-efficacy in order to sustain challenging and
difficult life realities.
When the teachers acquire the knowledge of these RPT learning strategies,
which students utilize for better comprehension, they may consider giving students
lectures on RPT strategies that aid reading for comprehension at the beginning of
the session. Such an orientation programme would provide students with an array
of learning skills that they could explore to become independent and confident
learners.
The Federal and State Governments, Institutions of Higher Learning,
Ministries of Education, could use the findings of this study, and be motivated to
organize conferences, seminars and workshops for teachers on the peer tutoring
strategies that could be useful for students. These workshops and seminars could
be designed to provide in-service training for teachers on how to design and
undertake RPT learning instruction.
The study may be of importance to textbook authors and curriculum
planners. The impact of these RPT learning strategies on the achievement, interest
and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students may be so important that
textbook writers may include sufficient information on the strategies in the
students’ texts. Any textbook with sufficient guide on the use of these strategies
would be popular among students and their teachers whose tasks would have
reduced.
25
The influence of gender on achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension is another area of importance. The study may reveale whether
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy helps the students to achieve uniform
improvement in achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension.
The finding would help to change the tacit belief in Obollo Afor Education zone
that males are superior to females in everything that counts. This would encourage
females to cultivate higher sense of self-efficacy in order to sustain challenging
and difficult life realities, especially in taking initiatives and in leadership roles.
The findings of this study also may reveal the effects which reciprocal peer
tutoring and different gender groupings have on the achievement, interest and self-
efficacy in reading comprehension of students. Lack of significant gender
differences between the male only group and female only group, male only group
and mixed gender groupings, or female only group and mixed gender groupings
may go further in resolving the gender controversy. Therefore, male and female
students would be encouraged to acquire relevant learning skills that would
enhance their achievement. The teachers would also learn to eliminate the
discriminating statements or behaviours that make a particular gender feel superior
or inferior to the other.
This study has some theoretical significance for Vygotsty’s social cognitive
theory, which is based on the fact that recall of information is highly dependent on
the way information is acquired and processed, as well as the ability of the learner
to bring to mind a schema that relates to the objects or events described in the
26
passage. Hence, the mental work processing which could be done through
predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing, and the collaborative
assistance, both given and received, in the zone of proximal development (ZPD),
would enable the new knowledge to be stored permanently in the long term
memory. In other words, the more information is completely processed, analyzed
and connected with other information, the better the understanding, as well as the
ability to recall.
To the researchers and academics, the findings of this would provide
information upon which future researches in the area of learning strategies could
be based. The data from this study would also serve as empirical evidence to
researchers. In all, the study would likely improve teaching and learning of
subjects that require reading for comprehension and improve students’
achievement in the School Certificate Examinations.
Scope of the Study
The study focused on the effect of reciprocal peer tutoring on senior
secondary school students’ achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension.
Specifically, the study was delimited to only senior secondary class two (SS
II) students in Obollo Afor Education Zone of Enugu State.
The independent variables in this study include reciprocal peer tutoring
strategies, gender and gender groupings, while the dependent variables were
27
achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension. Comprehension
tests were drawn from passages in Intensive English for Senior Secondary Schools
2, covering such disciplines as humanities, social sciences and sciences, because
these were the areas that had been identified as presenting difficulty to the
students, due to the volume of materials to be read (WAEC Chief Examiners’
Report, 2000-2005).
Research Questions
The study addressed itself to finding answers to the following questions:
(1) To what extent do the (a) mean achievement scores, (b) mean interest rating
and (c) mean self-efficacy rating of the students in reading comprehension
depend on exposure to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and conventional
teaching method?
(2) What is the influence of gender on the (a) mean achievement scores (b)
mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension of the students based on RPT strategy?
(3) To what extent do different gender groupings affect the (a) mean
achievement scores (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating
in reading comprehension of the students?
(4) What is the interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) strategy and
gender on the (a) mean achievement scores (b) mean interest rating (c) mean
self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of the students?
28
Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were tested at 0.05 levels of significance:
1. There is no significant difference in the (a) mean achievement scores (b)
mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension of the students who were exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring
(RPT) and those taught using conventional teaching method.
2. Gender has no significant influence on the (a) achievement (b) interest and
(c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of the students as measured by
their mean scores in (a) Test of Comprehension (TOC) (b) Interest Rating
Scale and (c) Self-efficacy Rating Scale.
3. Gender groupings will not be a significant factor on (a) mean achievement
scores (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension as measured by their scores in (a) Test of Comprehension
(TOC) (b) Interest Rating Scale and (c) Self-efficacy Rating Scale.
4. There is no significant interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT)
strategy and gender on the (a) mean achievement (b) mean interest rating
and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of the students as
measured by their scores in (a) Test of Comprehension (TOC) (b) Interest
Rating Scale and (c) Self-efficacy Rating Scale.
29
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This chapter examined some literature related to the area of study. In doing
this, the researcher organized the review under the following headings:
Conceptual Framework:
- Concept of Reading Comprehension
- Concept of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring
- Concept of Achievement
- Concept of Interest
- Concept of Perceived Self-efficacy
- Relationship among Reciprocal Peer Tutoring, Interest, Self-efficacy and
Achievement
Theoretical Framework:
- Vygotsky’s Social Cognitive Theory
- Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
- Self-determination Theory (SDT) of Motivation and Interest
Empirical Studies:
- Studies Related to Reciprocal Peer Tutoring and Achievement
- Studies Related to Interest and Achievement
- Studies Related to Self-efficacy and Achievement
- Studies on Gender as a Factor in Achievement
Summary of Review of Literature:
30
Conceptual Framework
Concept of Reading Comprehension
Many books about reading, and specifically about comprehension for that
matter, do not even define what “comprehension” is. Perhaps, it is assumed that
every person knows what it is; or may be “comprehension” is a slippery term that
people have trouble grasping, or “comprehending.
Presley, (2006) defined reading comprehension as understanding a text that
is read, or the process of “constructing meaning” from a text. Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary defined reading comprehension as the capacity of the mind to perceive
and understand; while Mayer (2003) simply defined it as the level of understanding
of a passage or text. Reading comprehension, then, would be the capacity to
perceive and understand the meanings communicated by text.
A closer look at reading shows that this issue is much more complicated than
it seems. Facile definitions coupled with the complicated nature of reading
comprehension are what keep us from understanding it fully, and from teaching it
as well as we can. A focus on a few issues may help to explain successful reading
comprehension.
According to Mayer (2003) comprehension requires the reader to be an
active constructor of meaning. Reading research has demonstrated that readers do
not simply “perceive” the meaning that is in a text. In fact, expert readers co-
construct meaning with a text. The research base shows that reading is a
“transaction” in which the reader brings purposes and life experiences to bear to
31
converse with the text. This meeting of the reader and the text results in the
meaning that is comprehension. Comprehension always attends to what is coded or
written in the text, but it also depends upon the reader’s background experiences,
purposes, feelings, and needs of the moment. That is why one can read the same
book or story twice and it will have very different meanings for the reader. Readers
are equal and active partners with the text in the meaning – making process of
comprehension.
The question then concerns the processes and strategies that are required to
be an active constructor of meaning as a reader. There is wide agreement among
reading researchers that every time a reader reads anything, the reader makes use
of the following strategies:
Active prior knowledge, and connect the applicable prior experiences to the
reading (if students do not have the requisite background knowledge about a
topic, they will be unable to comprehend).
Set purposes.
Predict.
Decode Text – identify word and sentence meanings.
Summarize – bring meaning forward throughout the reading, building on
prior information to create new and fuller meanings.
Visualize – see characters – settings, situations, ideas, mental models.
Question.
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Monitor understanding – the most salient difference between good and poor
readers is that good readers know when – and often why they do not
comprehend.
Use clarifying and corrective strategies where needed.
Reflect on and apply the meaning that has been made to new situations.
(Mayer, 2003 & Presley, 2006).
Mayer (2003) noted that there are three points to note here: -
1. Since these strategies are used every time anybody reads, if kids do not use
all these strategies, then these are the ones to teach them first. They have the
greatest transfer value.
2. One needs to know how to teach these strategies and give them over to
students (this is where the featured techniques of thinking – aloud and action
strategies come in). Simply explaining the techniques would not suffice.
Students need help in the process of HOW to do it. Just as explaining how to
ride a bicycle would not be sufficient to get a novice down the hill, neither is
explaining a text, or explaining a comprehension strategy, going to do the
job in promoting comprehension.
3. These strategies are necessary to reading comprehension in all situations, but
they are usually insufficient to comprehension. Readers of any text generally
go well beyond these general process strategies as they use engagement
strategies to create a textual world, move around in it, and evaluate it. As
33
students get older and read more sophisticated texts they must also learn
how to meet the demands of making meaning with new text structures
(argument, classification, satire, definition, fable etc) and new task specific
conventions (like those to tip off a reader to irony, symbolism, unreliable
narrators etc). A reader who reads a satire or an ironic monologue – or even
a fable, for that matter – using only general process strategies will not
comprehend it. He needs text, and task specific strategies to notice that a text
is ironic, and to know what to do as a result. Yes, comprehension and
teaching it are more complicated than most of people think.
Finally Biemiller and Boole (2006) indicated that teachers of reading have
another big problem. Expert readers literally do hundreds of things every time they
read that are automatic. This automatically means that they are unaware of what
they are doing as they read. All of the stances and strategies that they use are not
made available to struggling readers. In fact, struggling readers do not even know
they are supposed to be using all of these strategies.
The students who need help are the ones who are the least like expert
readers. The best way to help them is to take off the tops to teach them, to become
aware of and share what experts are doing as readers. Teachers need to explicitly
model what they do, guide and nurture them to do the same things, and then create
situations that will encourage and help them to purposefully use the same
strategies. The following teaching model can be proposed:
34
I DO – YOU WATCH
I DO – YOU HELP
YOU DO TOGETHER – I WATCH
YOU DO INDEPENDENTLY - I WATCH
Another way of putting it is from the students’ perspectives:
SHOW ME – HELP ME – LET ME
Using thinking – aloud and action strategies, two rich sets of teaching
techniques, are ways of doing just that. The findings of this study may reveal the
extent reciprocal peer tutoring is capable of meeting the demands of these two rich
sets of teaching techniques.
A number of interesting approaches have been employed in teaching reading
comprehension. Ene (2002) identified these approaches to include: -
a) Generative reading
b) Individualized reading
c) Stock Lesson approach.
Wittrock (1974), proposed the model of generative reading. In this model,
reading comprehension occurs when readers build relationship between the text
and their knowledge and experience, and among the different parts of a text.
According to this model of learning, teachers can facilitate reading comprehension
by inducing the readers to attend to the text, to relate their knowledge and
experience to it, and to build associations, abstraction and inferences from it
(Linder and Wittrock, 1981). They emphasized that generation of associations and
35
relations can be taught in a variety of ways such as by inducing the learners to
generate text-related summary sentences, headings, inferences, main ideas, critical
comments and evaluations. Linder and Wittrock (1981) explained that in addition
to generating verbal representations for the text, the reader can be taught to
construct imagery representations such as pictures, images, graphs, illustrations,
diagrams and drawings. Kaplan (1971) earlier noted that teaching a reader to
construct images and illustrations is very necessary in the understanding of
passages. The development of this method by Wittrocks, therefore, may have been
informed by the earlier experiments of Paivio (1970) and Kaplan (1971).
The individualized reading approach is another technique in the teaching of
reading comprehension. The individualized approach is also known by other names
as the Keller plan, Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), and the Personalized
Laboratory Approach (PLA). The formal history of this approach goes back to the
early sixties when two American psychologists – Fred Keller and Glimour J.
Sherman and two Brazilian psychologists – Carolina Bori and Rodolfa Azzi,
devised the method as a way of offering psychological courses at the newly
established University of Brasilia. In 1964, Keller and his associates offered the
first PSI course and in 1968 presented the first formal description of the method in
a classic paper titled – “Good-bye, Teacher…” (Husen & Postlethwaite cited in
Ene, 2002).
But the Keller plan also belongs to a long tradition of experiments in
individualized instruction. This tradition, goes back to at least the turn of the
36
century when Frederick Burk of the San Francisco State Normal school began
work on the first clear cut plan for individualized instruction for use in his
institution’s elementary school. Like the Keller’s Plan, Burk’s approach called for
abandoning class recitation and daily assignments.
Four fascinating qualities of the personalized system of instruction, which
distinguish it from conventional ones, are:-
a) Mastery oriented
b) Individually paced courses
c) Use of very few lectures to stimulate and motivate students.
d) Use of printed study guides to communicate information.
Together, these four features form a “system”. Given the goal of mastery-
features, the other features in any part of a course, each student may be given the
necessary time. Individual pacing features thus seem necessary. Ene (2002), citing
Kuklik, rightly observed that lecturing on required information to groups of
students is incompatible with individual pacing, but optional lectures for
stimulation are possible and inherently necessary. In any case, the mastery
approach, individually paced courses, stimulating lessons and printed study guides
are known to evolve from early psychological orientation, which has very close
affinity with the Gestalt orientations.
Finally, the next approach to teaching reading comprehension is the Stock
Lesson Approach (The Stock Lesson Approach is here regarded as the
conventional method). According to Ene (2002), two aspects of the Stock Lesson
37
approach: Stock Lesson I and Stock Lesson II, have been in use for some time
now.
In Stock Lesson I approach, the teacher teaches the reading comprehension
by first writing the difficult or new words on the blackboard. He then reads those
words aloud and gives their meanings. Sometimes, he translates them. More often
than not, he gives a definition in English. The pupils may be asked to read the
words aloud. The reading of the passage then begins. In Stock Lesson I individual
students are asked to read aloud and the teacher occasionally interrupts to correct
pronunciations. This reading is sometimes done round the class or if the teacher
wants to ensure that all the students are paying attention, he picks out students
randomly from the class to read the passages. At the end of the reading exercise,
the teacher asks questions “to see if the students have understood”.
The Stock Lesson II, unlike the Stock Lesson I proceeds silently, although it
begins in much the same way as the Stock Lesson I. The teacher having completed
the preliminary aspect of the lesson, now instructs the students to read silently to
the end of the chapter or passage. While the students are reading silently, the
teacher sits back and proceeds to busy himself with his own work. When he feels
that students have completed the reading, he then proceeds like his colleague in the
Stock Lesson I, to ask question “to see if they have understood”.
The Stock Lesson Approach has been considered the oldest and most
dominant approach used in teaching reading comprehension in our schools today.
Little effort has been made to incorporate other new approaches. The findings of
38
this study may reveal whether reciprocal peer tutoring approach could serve as an
alternative approach to the conventional approaches.
Concept of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring
Attempts to estimate peer effects on educational achievement directly have
been relatively limited. Hanushek (1992) finds no peer achievement effects, while
Zimmer and Toma cited in Ene (2002) report positive influences of higher
achieving peers at least for some students. But when observations are made in
primary, secondary and even tertiary institutions, one will clearly see some
phenomena such as imitation, group formation, and group play of different types.
One will equally observe some students teaching other students. This is peer
tutoring that occurs in the school and is student-initiated, as children spontaneously
help their peers, mates and friends. The peer- mediated intervention can be
organized such that students are assembled in groups of two or more and are
trained to work together on a specific academic task. These students take turns
acting as the tutor and the tutee for instruction and review of academic material
with teacher’s supervision. This procedure is called reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT).
Reciprocal peer tutoring was developed and tested for children with
academic needs by Pigott, Fantuzzo, Heggie, & Clement (1984). In this procedure,
students assembled in groups of two or more are trained to work together on a
specific academic task. The students work together to prompt, monitor and
evaluate each other, while working toward group goals (Fantuzzo, Polite &
39
Grayson, 1990). Students alternate between the roles of tutor and tutee in groups of
two. In larger groups of three or four, roles of a group monitor and an evaluator are
added to the procedure. The students work together in their groups to achieve
established goals or rewards that are contingent upon group achievement. There is
an assumption that reciprocal peer tutoring has been effective in increasing
academic achievement in areas of Mathematics (Fantuzzo, King & Heller, 1992)
and vocabulary (Malone & Mchaughlin, 1997).
Greenwood, Carts and Maheady (1991) identified three of the basic
principles underlying RPT interventions as increasing academic engagement,
increasing the opportunity to respond, and increasing timely feedback regarding
students’ responses. Another important component of RPT is the incorporation of
rewards contingent upon the achievement of each group member. RPT requires
that the students set a goal to be reached for each session, and the students earn
points for correctly responding on academic tasks. RPT requires each member of
the group to contribute to the attainment of the goal, and ensures that no one
person can be responsible for the group success.
The creation of Palinscar and Brown (1986) is that reciprocal peer tutoring is
in some ways a compilation of four comprehension strategies: summarizing,
questioning, clarifying and predicting. Please understand that some think the
choice of “reciprocal” in the name of this strategy is slightly misleading. It
conjures up the image of a student in front of the class, or of students taking turns
40
telling each other important ideas in the text. Instead, the strategy is best at seeking
to promote comprehension by tackling the ideas in a text on several fronts.
The order in which the four stages occur is not crucial; one may want to try
out different versions of the strategy to see if a particular protocol suits one’s
teaching style, and one’s students’ learning styles, better. One may also want to
choose text selections carefully to be certain that they lend themselves to all four
strategies of reciprocal peer tutoring.
However, before one can adopt reciprocal peer tutoring to be used
successfully by one’s students, they need to have been taught and had time to
practise the four strategies that are used in reciprocal peer tutoring. It does make
sense therefore, that they should already have learned and become comfortable
with summarizing before attempting to use it in a reciprocal peer tutoring strategy,
and they should even have been comfortable with questioning, predicting or
clarifying.
One approach to teaching reciprocal peer tutoring might be to have students
work from a four – column chart, with each column headed by the different
comprehension activity involved. One might also consider implementing reciprocal
peer tutoring the way Donna Dyer of the North West Regional Education Service
Agency in North Carolina recommends. Here is one way she suggests one uses
reciprocal teaching:
41
1. Put students in groups of four
2. Distribute one note card to each member of the group identifying each
person’s unique role:
a. Summarizer
b. Questioner
c. Clarifier
d. Predictor
3. Have students read a few paragraphs of the assigned text selection.
Encourage them to use note-taking strategies such as selective underlining or
sticky-notes to help them better prepare for their role in the discussion.
4. At the given stopping point, the summarizer will highlight the key ideas up
to this point in the reading.
5. The Questioner will then pose questions about the selection:
Unclear parts
Puzzling information
Connections to other concepts already learned
Motivations of the agents or actors or characters.
6. The clarifier will address confusing parts and attempt to answer the
questions that were just posed.
42
7. The predictor can offer guesses about what the author will tell the group next
or, if it is a literacy selection, the predictor might suggest what the next
events in the story will be.
8. The roles in the group then switch one person to the right, and the next
selection is read. Students repeat the processes using their new roles. This
continues until the entire selection is read.
Effective reciprocal peer tutoring lessons include scaffolding, thinking
aloud, using co-operative learning, and facilitating Meta cognition with each step
(Galloway, 2001). Thinking aloud and discussion of thoughts aid clarification and
revision of thinking and learning, therefore developing cognition. Vygotsky’s
theory of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is critical to identifying
appropriate text and scaffolding activities to support student success (Galloway,
2001). Appropriate support and feedback must be given to facilitate learning
during reciprocal peer tutoring activities (Oczkus, 2003).
Different rationales underlie the use of students as teachers of other students.
Some arguments are derived from the theory of cognitive development. This
theory has many ideas about the role of reciprocal peer tutoring. Especially
influential has been Vygotsky’s conception of the Zone of Proximal Development
(ZPD) which stresses student’s benefit from interaction with more competent peers
(Galloway, 2001). Social learning theory has shown that students who doubt their
learning capacities are influenced by the behaviour of others with high sense of
efficacy in a particular task through the models they provide. According to Igbo
43
(2004) it is clear that many peer-tutoring achievements have benefited those
tutored, producing gains both in school achievement and on standardized tests.
This implies that peer-tutoring programmes are part of the curriculum in many
schools outside Nigeria.
Concept of Achievement
The academic achievement of a child could be defined as the learning
outcome the child. This includes the knowledge, skills and ideas acquired and
trained through the course of study within and outside the classroom situations
(Epunam, 1999). This could be quantified by measure of the child’s academic
standing in relation to those of other children of the child’s age.
Academic achievement has been shown to be largely a result of a student’s
reality orientation, or ego stringent. That is, successful students who possess strong
egos are willing to postpone pleasure, are not so easily distracted, and are generally
more able to pursue tasks in an organized fashion. Under achievers, in contrast,
have low ego strength, are less able to postpone gratification (Hummel &
Sprinthall, cited in Nwakoby, 2008).
Some environmental variables in a home influence learning capabilities of a
child, either positively or negatively, and thus affect the child’s academic
achievement. Such variables are:
44
Parents
Parents have been identified as one of the environmental factors that
influence their children’s lives to a great extent. Most fundamental concepts of life
are taught to children by their parents especially by their mothers who spend longer
hours with their children. The extent to which parents motivate their children in
their academic work affects the level of achievement of the children. Parental
educational background has also been identified to have great impact on the
education and academic achievement of a child. Ohakwe (1997) observed that
parents with high educational attainment tend to gear their children towards
studying courses they are talented, and this helps the children to achieve better.
When parents are interested in their children’s education, the children tend to
achieve higher.
Studies generally find a positive association between the quality of home
environment and children’s academic outcomes. Nwakoby (2008), citing Durbow,
Turk, Wagstaff and Wangi in their review of the relationship between parental
residence and provisioning and the later academic outcome among Caribbean
village children, stated that children from families where biological fathers were in
residence and provided minimal support tended to have higher academic
achievements and fewer learning related behaviour problems.
Siblings and peer group influences
Siblings and peer group influence academic achievement of a child.
Nwakoby cited Head as indicating that girls are easily influenced by their peers
45
whom they sometimes trust more than their parents or teachers. A child whose
siblings and peers are well motivated towards academic work tends to achieve
higher than one whose peers are more interested in social life. Well-motivated
siblings and peers have healthy academic competition in their home environment;
they visit each other, study at home and exchange ideas. While most children pick
up positive skills through their everyday interactions with adults and peers, it is
important that educators and parents reinforce this casual learning with direct and
indirect interaction. One must also recognize when and where children pick up
behaviours that might be detrimental to their development and safety.
Socialization pattern in the home
The socialization pattern in a home affects the academic achievements of
boys and girls at home. A home where boys are encouraged to aim higher and girls
are trained to see themselves as weaker vessels, produce boys with better
academic achievements. One should note that stereotyping as a factor had led
many female children to portray negative attitude towards education. The societal
and family way of socializing girls make them to be aware of their sex and feel that
there is no point competing with boys in all fields. They believe that some fields
are exclusively for boys while the home is for girls. This affects the academic
achievements of girls negatively. Good social skills are critical to successful
functioning in life. These skills enable children to know what to say, how to make
good choices and how to behave in diverse situations. The extent to which children
46
possess good social skills influences their academic achievement, behaviour, social
and family relationships and involvement in extra curricular activities.
Therefore, the academic achievement of a child may be said to depend much
on what that child has acquired at home and school, but the influence of the home
starts from the cradle. A child for excellent achievements therefore, requires a
good home environment. Children vary in their abilities and aptitudes to learn.
Parents should therefore recognize this and attend to every child according to the
child’s needs. Parents should also work hard to establish and maintain a good
home environment where love, hard work and excellence are encouraged in order
to bring out the best in their children.
While at school, children are developing a sense of themselves both as
students and as social beings, and the beliefs that they form about their academic
abilities affect their classroom achievement. Infact, academic self-concept has been
identified as a predictor of academic achievement beyond what can be explained
by prior achievement (Marsh & Hau, 2003). Children who are secure and confident
in their abilities to succeed are likely to put forth the effort required to master
school work (Dweek, cited in Nwakoby, 2008). When the material is challenging,
they work even harder and as a result, earn high grades, which reinforce their
belief about their abilities. However, children who are uncertain about their
abilities, regardless of objective indicators of their academic achievement, might
be inclined to give up easily or not put forth much effort (Repetti, McGrath &
47
Ishikawa, 1999). Negative perception of academic ability could contribute to a
cycle that causes a child to fall behind in school work.
One may hypothesize that social experiences in the classroom play a role in
shaping a child’s academic self-concept. Since reciprocal peer tutoring aims at
using social interaction (dialogue) in the development of cognition, one wonders
whether the strategy would help to enhance the achievement of the students.
Concept of Interest
Among the many conceptualizations of interest, the most common are to
consider interest as a state and/or a disposition (Alexander, 1997). It has also been
demonstrated that interest has both cognitive and affective (emotional)
components. Hidi (2000) also distinguished between individual and situational
interest, with the former targeting personal interest and the latter focusing on
creating appropriate environmental settings.
Individual interest has been viewed as a relatively long-lasting
predisposition to reengage with particular objects or events (Harackiewiez, Barron,
Tauer, Carter & Elliot, 2000). Increased knowledge, value, and positive affect have
been connected with individual interest. Students bring to their academic
experience a network of individual interests, some similar to and some
incompatible with classroom learning (Mitchelle, 1993). Social categories such as
gender and race also function as individual interest factors that may affect
classroom engagement (Hoffman & Haussler, 1998).
48
Situational interest refers to a psychological state elicited by environmental
stimuli. The state is characterized by focused attention and an immediate affective
reaction. The affective component is generally positive, although it also includes
some negative emotions. Once triggered, the reaction may or may not be
maintained (Schraw, Flowerday, & Lehman, 2001). Situational sources of interest
in learning context may be particularly relevant for educators working with
students who do not have performed individual interest in their school activities
(Renniner & Hidi, 2002).
Although differences exist between situational and individual interest, they
are not dichotomous phenomena. First, both situational and individual interests
include an affective component and culminate in the psychological state of interest.
Focused attention, increased cognitive functioning, and increased and persistent
activity characterize such a state. Second, investigators concede that both types of
interest are content specific and emerge from the interaction of the person and
aspects in the environment. Third, numerous researchers recognize that situational
and individual interests may interact. In the absence of the other, the role of
individual or situational interest may be particularly important (Hidi, 2000;
Renninger, 2000; Sadoski, 2001). For example, individual interest in a subject may
help individuals deal with relevant but boring texts, while situational interest
generated by texts may sustain motivation even when individuals have no
particular interest in the topic. In addition, situational interest may develop over
time into individual interest (Mayer, Talbot & Stubblefield, 1998).
49
It has been found that topic interest has both situational and individual
components. Topic interest may have an especially significant role in reading and
writing in schools because students usually have to deal with text on the basis of
topics provided by teachers (Bergin, 1999).
Two types of interest were also elaborated by Onyemerekeya (1998), which
are:
i. Direct, Natural or spontaneous interest, and
ii. Indirect or Acquired interest.
When direct interest is aroused, the learners will pay attention without
compulsion. This is so because the subject under study will be so attractive and
interesting to them that they do not have to make any determined effort to pay
attention. Onyemerekeya also said that interest is aroused when the subject matter
of the lesson has some connection with the students’ own lives and experiences
and or their basic needs.
Indirect or Acquired Interest is a situation when children pay attention on
realizing that the subject in question has some bearing on their relation to praise or
reward, studying to pass a promotion examination etc. When students are faced
with the study of subjects in which they are not naturally interested, they have to
force their minds to concentrate. They are giving the course voluntary attention. It
should be noted that under free choice, students display a strong tendency for
subjects that they enjoy most. It should also be stressed that students’ choice of
subject has some relationship with their interest. There is a distinction between
50
interest in subject matter and interest in social implication. Intrinsic interest in a
subject is developed not because of one’s natural inclination. This interest in a
subject is distinct from interest in a subject for its practical value.
According to Onyemerekeya (1998), teachers need to arouse the learners’
interest in learning activities. This, they can do through positive motivation, use of
a variety of instructional materials, using a variety of questioning skills, especially
higher order and divergent questions as well as active participation by the learners
in class activities. He added that once aroused, efforts must be made by the
teachers to sustain the interest. Such activities as projects, assignments, free and
uninhibited interaction in the class can be useful for generating interest.
Ede (1999) also stated some strategies or methods that can assist in the
generation of interest. First, the use of gesture, eye contact and vocal inflection can
increase expressiveness. According to him, this is not to advocate the manic body
language of some television commentators but rather, to suggest that if we convey
our enthusiasm for a topic through language and body language, then it is more
likely to become infectious.
Secondly, the uses of apt examples that have personal or vocational
relevance are particularly appropriate. Ede further stressed that the order in which
examples are presented is of importance. The usual order is positive, negative and
vague. In a study of explaining in Biology, Sansone and Smith (2000) found that
when ideas which were new to a group, were being explained, then an inductive
pattern of several examples leading to a definition or generalization was most
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effective. When the ideas were relatively familiar to the group, the use of the
deductive pattern of statement of principle followed by examples was more
effective. The reasons for the finding are not hard to discern. Introducing new
knowledge requires activation of examples already known, so that the new
connections may be made. When ideas are already known, the deductive pattern
restructures the existing knowledge of the students.
The third mechanism is to use an appropriate mode of explaining. There are
three modes being observed: the narrative, the anecdotal and the conceptual. In the
narrative mode, the teacher explains an event or a set of research findings in the
form of a personal story. In the anecdotal mode, the teacher uses humorous stories,
perhaps drawn from his or her experience to illustrate and make the key points. In
the conceptual mode, the teacher provides series of principles of facts in a logical
order. The narrative mode is most likely to capture interest but it may not provide
clear, precise knowledge. The anecdotal mode can be very entertaining but it is not
always informative. The conceptual mode is likely to be clear but less interesting.
A mixture of the three, starting with the narrative, using anecdotal appropriately,
and ending with a conceptual summary is likely to be the most effective way of
generating interest and understanding.
Ede (1999) suggested the following mechanisms for generating interest thus:
i. Show your own interest/commitment to the topic.
ii. Think of and use examples, analogies, metaphors, and models, which are
suitable for the audience and the topic.
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iii. If the material is unfamiliar, begin with several examples.
iv. Use a mixture of modes of explaining but particularly the narrative mode.
v. Play on the intellectual curiosity of the audience through the use of puzzles,
problems and questions.
The most important questions that rose in the literature on interest and
reading concerned the influence of interest on readers’ text processing and
learning, the factors that contribute to readers’ interest and the specific processes
through which interest influences learning. These issues are considered next.
Up till early 1980s, the prevalent view in educational research was that
proficient readers process and recall text according to its hierarchical structure.
Thus it was believed that readers could recall best the more important ideas at the
higher levels of text structure (Schraw & Dennison, 1994). Since the early 1980s,
however, research has shown that readers’ well – formed individual interests and
their situational interests (evoked by topics and text segments) contributed to their
reading comprehension and learning. Several studies have demonstrated that
personally interesting text segments and passages written on high – interest topics
facilitate children’s as well as college students’ comprehension and retention
(Schiefele, 1998; Wade, Buxton & Kelly, 1999).
Researchers have also demonstrated that interest affects the type of learning
that occurs. Specifically, beyond increasing the amount of recall, interest seems to
have a substantial effect on the quality of learning. Interest leads to more elaborate
and deeper processing of texts. McDaniel, Waddill, Finstad and Bourg (2000)
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found that readers engaged with uninteresting narratives focused on individual text
elements, such as extracting proposition – specific content, whereas readers of
interesting texts tended to engage in organizational processing of information.
Furthermore, their research suggests that text differing in interest may affect the
degree to which processing strategies benefit memory performance.
Another educational issue is to increase the amount of interesting reading
that students engage in. The bulk of the research in this area examined text
characteristics that contribute to making reading materials more interesting. In his
seminal 1979 paper, Schank indicated that certain concepts (e.g. Death, violence,
and sex) can be considered “absolute interests” that almost universally elicit
individuals’ interest. Schraw, Flowerday, and Lehman (2001), referring to these
interests as “emotional interests,” distinguished them from cognitive interest,
which result from events that are involved in complex cognitive structures or
contain surprise. Subsequent research has suggested that a variety of text
characteristics contribute in a positive way to the interestingness and memorability
of written materials. Features that were found to be sources of situational interest
include novelty, surprising information, intensity, visual imagery, ease of
comprehension, text cohesion, and prior knowledge (Anderson, Shirley, Wilson &
Fielding, 1997).
Text-based interest can also be promoted by altering certain aspects of the
learning environment such as modifying task presentations, curriculum materials,
and individuals’ self-regulation. For example, Schraw and Dennison (1994) were
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able to change the interestingness and recall of text materials by assigning for
reading various perspectives on the same topic. In addition, research has indicated
that presenting educational materials in more meaningful, challenging, and or
personally relevant contexts can stimulate interest (Krapp, 1999). Modifying the
presence of others in the learning environment can also elicit interest. For example,
German researchers Hoffman and Haussler (1998) demonstrated that mono-
educational classes in physics could contribute to girls’ increased interest in the
subject area. Finally, Sansone and Smith, (2000) in a series of studies showed that
individuals can self-regulate in order to make tasks more interesting and
subsequently to develop individual interest in activities initially considered
uninteresting. Although these studies did not deal specifically with interest in
reading, they indicated that interest in reading could also be increased by similar
methods.
Schraw, Bruning, and Svoboda (1995) suggested that interest should be
thought of as a complex cognitive phenomenon affected by multiple text and
reader characteristic. A critical question is how the elicitation of interest leads to
improved recall. One possibility is that interest activates text – processing
strategies that result in readers being engaged in deeper-level processing. Wade,
Buxton and Kelly (1999) reported that the connections readers made between
information and their prior knowledge or previous experience increased their
interest.
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Sadoski, Goetz and Fritz (1993) suggested that interacting but separate
cognitive systems (verbal and nonverbal) can explain the relationship among
interest, comprehension and recall. When verbal materials are encoded through
both of these systems, comprehension and memory increase. The dual coding
suggested by Sadoski and colleagues seems to account for the effects of some of
the sources of interest that have been found to be associated with increased
comprehension and memory such as the processing of concrete, high-imagery
materials. Nevertheless, some highly concrete and easily imaginable information is
more interesting than other similar information. In addition, the informational
significance of intensity, novelty, surprise, high personal relevance, and character
identification reported in the literature to elicit interest do not seem to promote dual
encoding prompted by concrete language and mental imagery (Krapp, 1999).
Another factor that has been associated with interest, reading, and increased
learning is attention. Hidi (2001) argued that interest is associated with automatic
attention that facilitates learning. More specifically, she argued that such attention
frees cognitive resources and leads to more efficient processing and better recall of
information, and McDaniel, Waddill, Finstad and Bourg (2000), reported empirical
data supporting this position. Finally, as interest undoubtedly has a strong
emotional component, this aspect may play a critical role in how interest influences
learning. The effect of emotions on interest, however, is yet to be fully investigated
in educational research.
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The Concept of Perceived Self-efficacy
Perceived self-efficacy is defined by Bandura (1994) as people’s beliefs
about their capabilities to produce designated levels of achievement that exercise
influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how
people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. Such beliefs produce these
diverse effects through four major processes. They include cognitive, motivational,
affective and selection processes.
Bandura (1998) argued that a strong sense of efficacy enhances human
accomplishments and personal well being in many ways. People with high
assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered
rather than as threats to be avoided. Such an efficacious outlook fosters intrinsic
interest and deep engrossment in activities. They set themselves challenging goals
and maintain strong commitment to them. They heighten and sustain their efforts
in the face of failure. They quickly recover their sense of efficacy after failures or
setbacks. They attribute failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and
skills, which are acquirable. They approach the threatening situations with
assurance that they can exercise control over them. Such an efficacious outlook
produces personal accomplishments, reduces stress and lowers vulnerability to
depression.
In contrast people who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult tasks,
which they view as personal threats. They have low aspirations and weak
commitment to the goals they choose to pursue. When faced with difficult tasks,
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they dwell on their personal deficiencies, on the objects they will encounter, and all
kinds of adverse outcomes rather than concentrate on how to perform successfully.
They slacken their efforts and give up quickly in the face of difficulties. They are
slow to recover their sense of efficacy following failure or setbacks. Because they
view insufficient performance as deficient aptitude, it does not require much
failure for them to lose faith in their capabilities. They fall victim to stress and
depression.
People’s beliefs about their efficacy, according to Bandura (1994) can be
developed by four main sources of influence. The most effective way of creating a
strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences. Successes build a robust
belief in one’s personal efficacy. Failures undermine it, especially if failures occur
before a sense of efficacy is firmly established. The second way of creating and
strengthening self-beliefs of efficacy is through the vicarious experiences provided
by social models. Seeing people similar to one succeed by sustained effort raises
observers’ belief that they too possess the capabilities to master comparable
activities to succeed. By the same token, observing others fail despite high effort
lowers observers’ judgments of their own efficacy and undermines their efforts.
Social persuasion is a third way of strengthening people’s beliefs that they
have what it takes to succeed. People who are persuaded verbally that they possess
the capabilities to master given activities are likely to mobilize greater effort and
sustain it than if they harbor self-doubts and dwell on personal deficiencies when
problems arise.
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People also rely partly on their somatic and emotional states in judging their
capabilities. They interpret their stress reactions and tension as signs of
vulnerability to poor performance. In activities involving strength and stamina,
people judge their fatigue, aches and pains as signs of physical debility. Mood also
affects people’s judgments of their personal efficacy. Positive mood enhances
perceived self-efficacy while despondent mood diminishes it. The fourth way of
modifying self-beliefs of efficacy is to reduce people’s stress reactions and alter
their negative emotional proclivities and interpretations of their physical states. It
is not the sheer intensity of emotional and physical reactions that is important but
rather how they are perceived and interpreted. People who have a high sense of
efficacy are likely to view their state of affective arousal as an energizing
facilitator of performance, whereas those who are beset by self-doubts regard their
arousal as a debilitation. Physiological indicators of efficacy play an especially
influential role in health functioning and in athletic and other physical activities.
Four major psychological processes through which self-beliefs affect human
functioning identified by Bandura (1994) are as follows:
A. Cognitive Processes
The effects of self-efficacy beliefs on cognitive processes take a variety of
forms. Much human behaviour, being purposive, is regulated by forethought
embodying valued goals. Personal goal setting is influenced by self-appraisal of
capabilities. The stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the higher the goal
challenges people set for themselves and the firmer is their commitment to them.
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Most courses of action are initially organized in thought. People’s beliefs in
their efficacy shape the type of anticipatory scenarios they construct and rehearse.
Those who have a high sense of efficacy, visualize success scenarios that provide
positive guides and supports for performance. Those who doubt their efficacy
visualize failure scenarios and dwell on the many things that can go wrong. It is
difficult to achieve much while fighting self-doubt. A major function of thought is
to enable people to predict events and to develop ways to control those that affect
their lives. Such skills require effective cognitive processing of information that
contains many ambiguities and uncertainties. In learning predictive and regulative
rules, people must draw on their knowledge to construct options, to weight and
integrate predictive factors, to test and revise their judgments against the
immediate and distal results of their actions, and to remember which factors they
had tested and how well they had worked.
B. Motivational Processes
Self-beliefs of efficacy play a key role in the self-regulation of motivation.
Most human motivation is cognitively generated. People motivate themselves and
guide their actions anticipatorily by the exercise of forethought. They form beliefs
about what they can do. They anticipate likely outcomes of prospective actions.
They set goals for themselves and plan courses of action designed to realize valued
futures.
There are three different forms of cognitive motivators around which
different theories have been built. They include causal attributions, outcome
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expectancies and cognized goals. The corresponding theories are attribution theory,
expectancy – value theory and goal theory respectively. Self-efficacy beliefs
operate in each of these types of cognitive motivation. Self-efficacy beliefs
influence causal attributions. People who regard themselves as highly efficacious
attribute their failures to insufficient effort, those who regard themselves as
inefficacious attribute their failures to low ability. Causal attributions affect
motivation, performance and affective reactions mainly through beliefs of self-
efficacy.
In expectancy – value theory, motivation is regulated by the expectation that
a given course of behaviour will produce certain outcomes and the value of those
outcomes. But people act on their beliefs about what they can do, as well as on
their beliefs about the likely outcomes of performance. The motivating influence of
outcome expectancies is thus partly governed by self-beliefs of efficacy. There are
countless attractive options people do not pursue because they judge they lack the
capabilities for them. Including the influence of perceived self-efficacy enhances
the predictiveness of expectancy – value theory.
The capacity to exercise self-influence by goal challenges and evaluative
reaction to one’s own attainments provides a major cognitive mechanism of
motivation. Explicit, challenging goals enhance and sustain motivation. Goals
operate largely through self-influence processes rather than regulate motivation
and action. Motivation based on goal setting involves a cognitive comparison
process. By making self-satisfaction conditional on matching adopted goals, people
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give direction to their behaviour and create incentives to persist in their efforts
until they fulfill their goals. They seek self-satisfaction from fulfilling valued goals
and are prompted to intensify their efforts by discontent with substandard
performances.
Motivation based on goals or three types of self-influences govern personal
standards. They include self-satisfying and self-dissatisfying reactions to one’s
performance, perceived self-efficacy for goal attainment, and readjustment of
personal goals based on one’s progress. Self-efficacy beliefs contribute to
motivation in several ways. They determine the goals people set for them; how
much effort they expend; how long they persevere in the face of difficulties; and
their resilience to failures. When faced with obstacles and failures, people who
harbor self-doubts about their capabilities slacken their efforts or give up quickly.
Those who have a strong belief in their capabilities exert greater effort when they
fail to master the challenge. Strong perseverance contributes to performance
accomplishments.
C. Affective Process
People’s beliefs in coping capabilities affect how much stress and depression
they experience in threatening or difficult situations, as well as their level of
motivation. Perceived self-efficacy to exercise control over stressors plays a central
role in anxiety arousal. People who believe they can exercise control over threats
do not conjure up disturbing thought patterns. But those who believe they cannot
manage threats experience high anxiety arousal. They dwell on their coping
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deficiencies. They view many aspects of their environment as fraught with danger.
They magnify the severity of possible threats and worry about things that rarely
happen. Through such inefficacious thinking they distress themselves and impair
their level of functioning. Perceived coping self-efficacy regulates avoidance
behaviour as well as anxiety arousal. The stronger the senses of self-efficacy the
bolder people are in taking on taxing and threatening activities.
Anxiety arousal is affected not only by perceived coping efficacy but also by
perceived efficacy to control disturbing thoughts. The exercise of control over
one’s own consciousness is summed up well in the proverb: “You cannot prevent
the birds of worry and care from flying over your head. But you can stop them
from building a nest in your head”. Perceived self-efficacy to control thought
processes is a key factor in regulating thought produced stress and depression. It is
not the sheer frequency of disturbing thoughts but the perceived inability to turn
them off that is the major source of distress. Both perceived coping self-efficacy
and thought control efficacy operate jointly to reduce anxiety and avoidance
behaviour.
D. Selection Processes
The discussion so far has centered on efficacy-activated processes that
enable people to create beneficial environments and to exercise some control over
those they encounter day in and day out. People are partly the product of their
environment. Therefore, beliefs of personal efficacy can shape the course lives take
by influencing the types of activities and environments people choose. People
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avoid activities and situations they believe exceed their coping capabilities. But
they readily undertake challenging activities and select situations they judge
themselves capable of handling. By the choices they make, people cultivate
different competencies, interests and social networks that determine life courses.
Any factor that influences choice of behaviour can profoundly affect the direction
of personal development. This is because the social influences operating in
selected environments continue to promote certain competencies, values, and
interests long after the efficacy decisional determinant has rendered its
inaugurating effect.
Career choice and development is but one example of the power of self-
efficacy beliefs to affect the course of life paths through choice-related processes.
The higher the level of people’s perceived self-efficacy, the wider the range of
career options they seriously consider, the greater their interest in them, and the
better they prepare themselves educationally for the occupational pursuit they
choose and the greater is their success. Occupations structure a good part of
people’s lives and provide them with a major source of personal growth.
Bandura (1997) argued that during the crucial formative period of children’s
lives, the school functions as the primary setting for the cultivation and social
validation of cognitive competencies. School is the place where children develop
the cognitive competencies and acquire the knowledge and problem-solving skills
essential for participating effectively in larger society. Here, their knowledge and
thinking skills are continually tested, evaluated, and socially compared. As
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children master cognitive skills, they develop a growing sense of their intellectual
efficacy. Many social factors, apart from the formal instruction, such as peer
modeling of cognitive skills, social comparison with the performance of other
students, motivational enhancement through goals and positive incentives, and
teacher interpretations of children’s successes and failures in ways that reflect
favourably or unfavourably on their ability also affect children’s judgment of their
intellectual efficacy.
The task of creating learning environments conducive to development of
cognitive skills rests heavily on the talents and self-efficacy of teachers. Those who
have a high sense of efficacy about their teaching capabilities can motivate their
students and enhance their cognitive development. Teachers who have a low sense
of instructional efficacy favour a custodial orientation that relies heavily on
negative sanctions to get students to study.
Teachers operate collectively within an interactive social system rather than
as isolates. The belief systems of staff create school cultures that can have
vitalizing or demoralizing effects on how well the schools function as a social
system. Schools in which the staff collectively judges themselves as powerless to
get schools to achieve academic success convey a group sense of academic futility
that can pervade the entire life of the school. Schools in which staff members
collectively judge themselves capable of promoting academic success imbue their
schools with a positive atmosphere of development that promotes academic
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attainments regardless of whether they serve predominantly advantaged or
disadvantaged students.
Bandura, (2000) argued that students’ belief in their capabilities to master
academic activities affects their aspirations, their level of interest in academic
activities, and their academic accomplishments. There are a number of school
practices that, for the less talented or ill prepared, tend to convert instructional
experiences into education in inefficacy. These include lock-step sequences of
instruction, which lose many children along the way; ability groupings, which
further diminish the perceived self-efficacy of those cast in the lower ranks; and
competitive practices where many are doomed to failure for the success of a
relative few.
Classroom structures affect the development of intellectual self-efficacy, in
large part, by the relative emphasis they place on social comparison versus self-
comparison appraisal. Self-appraisals of less able students suffer most when the
whole group studies the same material and teachers make frequent comparative
evaluations. Under such a monolithic structure, students rank themselves according
to capability with high consensus. Once established, reputations are not easily
changed. In a personalized classroom structure, individualized instruction tailored
to students’ knowledge and skill enables all of them to expand their competencies
and provide less basis for demoralizing social comparison. As a result, students are
more likely to compare their rate of progress to their personal standards than to the
achievement of others. Self-comparison of improvement in a personalized
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classroom learning structures, in which students work together and help one
another also tend to promote more positive self-evaluations of capability and
higher academic attainments than do individualistic competitive ones. Since
reciprocal peer tutoring is a cooperative learning strategy, the findings of the study
will help to reveal the effect it has on students’ reading comprehension
achievement.
Relationship among Reciprocal Peer Tutoring, Interest, Self-efficacy and Achievement
While reciprocal peer tutoring, achievement, interest and self-efficacy have
been discussed separately in the brief sub-sections above, there is recognition
among educational psychologists that reciprocal peer tutoring as a
teaching/learning strategy is related to interest, achievement and self-efficacy as
motivational constructs. The links between the teaching strategy and the
motivational constructs, the nature of the relationships between and among them
can be seen thus:
Since reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) process involves a learning situation
where students take turns acting as the tutors and the tutees for instruction or
review of academic material, it is therefore expected that RPT would predict self-
efficacy and subsequent interest in reading comprehension and therefore enhance
the reading comprehension achievement. This expectation comes from the belief
that RPT helps students to be better learners, who are independent, active and
confident.
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It may be reasonable to hypothesize that if people’s beliefs about their
capabilities to produce designated levels of achievement are enhanced; such an
efficacious outlook fosters intrinsic interest and deeper engrossment in activities.
Such people are likely to set for themselves challenging goals and maintain strong
commitment to them. Researches have shown that interest affects the type of
learning that occurs. Beyond increasing the amount of recall, interest seems to
have a substantial effect on the quality of learning. Interest leads to more
elaborate and deeper processing of text. Such a deeper processing of text involves
transaction in which the reader brings purposes and life experiences to bear to
converse with the text, which leads to understanding of the text that is read; which
is comprehension. If the leaner comprehends or understands the text, the learner is
likely to achieve better. The relationship can be represented as in figure 1:
Figure 1: Diagrammatical representation of the relationship among RPT, interest,
perceived self-efficacy and achievement.
RECIPROAL PEER TUTORING (RPT)
PERCEIVED SELF- EFFICACY
ACHIEVEMENT
INTEREST
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Theoretical Framework
Vygotsky’s Social Cognitive Theory
Learning, both outside and inside school, advances through collaborative
social interaction and the social construction of knowledge. Contemporarily,
cognitive apprenticeship, distributed intelligence, and peer collaboration are
strongly advocated and highly urged in educational practice by educators such as
Brown, Collins, and Peer (1993), and Perkins (1993). To trace back to the origin of
such educational practice, it is necessary to study L. Vygotsky. Vygotsky is often
associated with social constructionist approach while Jean Piaget is usually related
to cognitive constructionist approach.
Vygotsky’s ideas have been a powerful force in educational practice in his
homeland – Russia, but it is only during the past decades that his works have been
of importance for Western education (Dixon-Krauss, 1996). Jerome Bruner
described his concept of human development as a theory of education (Wertsch,
1985). Vygotsky’s basic idea is that human behaviour is too complex to isolate,
dissect and study in a vacuum. It must instead be studied in the social and
historical context in which it occurs (Vygotsky 1978; 1981). Thus, his approach is
often regarded as socio historical.
Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of culture and social context in
learning. His theory is composed of three central concepts: internalization,
semiotic mediation, and zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978; 1981;
1986).
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One aspect of Vygostky’s theory is that children on the external plane and
then on the internal plane first carry out activities. Vygotsky maintained that any
function in the child’s cultural development appears twice or on two planes. First it
appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears
between people as an inter-psychological plane, and then within the child as an
intra-psychological plane (Vygotsky, 1981).
Vygotsky points out those individuals that are guided by their own mental
processes as they participate in social activities. However, these processes are
influenced by social experiences. Mental functions first begin on a social or inter-
psychological plane and then move to an inner or intra-psychological plane. He
calls this process internalization. Internalization involves transforming social
phenomena into psychological phenomena or making meaning through both
external and internal interactions (Vygotsky, 1981). Vygotsky states: “When we
speak of a process, “external” means “social”. Any higher mental function was
external because it was social at some point before becoming an internal, truly
mental function” (Vygotsky, 1981: 162). For Vygotsky, the transformation of
natural forms into higher cultural forms is one from external to the internal. As
well, social reality plays a primary role in determining the nature of internal intra-
psychological functioning.
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All higher mental functions are internalized social relationship…their composition, genetic structure, and means of action – in a word their whole nature is social. Even when we turn to mental processes, their nature remains quasi-social. In their own private sphere, human beings retain the functions of social interaction (Vygotsky, 1981: 164).
Vygotsky envisions a separate but related relationship between external
social processes and internal psychological processes. According to him, external
and internal processes are not copies of one another. Internalization transforms the
external processes into the internal, thus changing both the structure and functions
of the process (Vygotsky, 1981).
Wertsch (1981) identified three points that are helpful to understand
Vygotsky’s concept of interaction. First, internalization is not a process of copying
external reality on a preexisting internal plane. Instead, it is a process where an
internal plane of consciousness is formed. Second, the external reality is social and
related to other people. Finally the internal plane remains “quasi-social” because of
its quasi-social nature.
Semiotic mediation is another important concept needed to understand
Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1981) makes a distinction between what he terms “lower,
natural behaviour” and “higher, cultural behaviour”. Human beings share lower
biological forms of mental behaviour, such as elementary perception, memory, and
attention with animals. The higher forms of human mental functions like logical
memory, selective attention, decision-making and comprehension of language are
products of mediated activity. Vygotsky (1986) labels the mediators of human
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activities as “psychological tools” or “signs”. These tools such as culture,
language, and social context are important to human’s cognitive development.
They give humans control over their mental behaviour, as well as the power to
regulate and change natural forms of behaviour and cognition. Through the
mediating actions of these tools, natural forms of behaviour are transformed into
higher, cultural forms, unique to humans (Vygotsky, 1986). Vygotsky calls this
process semiotic mediation.
Vygotsky (1981) believes that lower mental behaviours are gradually
transformed into higher ones through social interaction. Vygotsky tells us there are
three stages in the development of speech: external speech, egocentric speech, and
inner speech.
The function of speech is at first social, used for contact and interaction with
others. Vygotsky (1986) explains that the social function is the first function of
speech. If we want to know how words function in an individual’s behaviour, we
must take into account its former function in social context. Social speech carries
out the task of communication and social relations with surrounding people. It is
speech that children use to control the behaviour of others; children use speech to
express simple thoughts and emotions such as crying, laughter and shouting.
Egocentric speech is the link between external speech and internal thought,
and “egocentric speech is inner speech in its function” (Vygotsky, 1986: 86).
Egocentric speech is a stage distinguished by external signs and external operations
that are used as aids to solve internal problems. That is the stage when the child
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counts on his fingers, resorts to mnemonic aids, and so on. This is typically the
type of speech found in a three-to seven-year-old.
Inner speech is similar to internal thought. The inner, soundless speech is a
stage in which the external operation turns inward and undergoes a profound
change in the process. Children begin to count in their heads and to use their
“logical memory,” that is, to operate with inherent relations and inner signs. Older
children and adults use this type of speech. When functional and structural changes
accumulate to a certain amount, inner speech occurs. “It branches off from the
child’s external speech simultaneously with the differentiation of the social and the
egocentric functions of speech, and finally that the speech structures mastered by
the child become the basic structures of his thinking” (Vygotsky, 1986: 94).
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the most important concept
among Vygotsky’s ideas. Vygotsky (1978) proposes that each child, in any
domain, has an actual developmental level and a potential developmental level.
The actual developmental level refers to all the functions and activities a child can
perform on the child’s own, without help from somebody else such as a teacher, an
adult or even a peer. The potential developmental level refers to all functions and
activities a child can perform only with guidance and assistance of someone else.
Vygotsky terms this difference between the two levels, the zone of proximal
development. He defines this as “…the distance between the actual developmental
level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in
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collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978: 86). In the zone of
proximal development, a teacher and a learner or an adult and a child work
together on a task that the learner or the child could not perform independently
because of the difficulty level. In other words, the zone of proximal development is
that area where children can achieve a goal with the support and guidance of a
more knowledgeable other. Vygotsky explains this concept more clearly as
follows:
The zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet
matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow
but are currently in an embryonic state. These functions would be termed the
“buds” or “flowers” of development rather than the “fruits” of development
(Vygotsky, 1978: 86). A child’s actual developmental level identifies a child’s
level of mental development at a particular time. It indicates the functions that
have already matured in the child. A child’s ZPD defines those functions that have
not matured yet, but are in the process of maturing and developing. A child’s ZPD
can be used to outline the child’s immediate future and his overall dynamic state of
development (Wertsch, 1985).
In summary, Vygotsky emphasizes the significance of social and cultural
context in the process of making meaning or learning with focus on guidance and
assistance from more knowledgeable others. In addition, he addresses the
importance of tools such as language for cognitive development. To elaborate on
the breadth and fathom of Vygotsky’s ideas is beyond the scope of this study.
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However, an overview of Vygotsky’s major concepts was offered in order to
improve the current practices. As students take turns in the reciprocal peer tutoring
process serving as tutors/tutees, it is expected that they would help each other in
the zone of proximal development to achieve their goals with the support and
guidance of more knowledgeable others.
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory.
Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the
sources of action required to manage prospective situations (Bandura, 1986). Self-
efficacy can still be looked at as the power or capacity to produce a desired effect;
effectiveness.
It has been observed that many students resist academics because they do
not believe they have the ability to succeed, regardless of their effort. These
students have a low level of self-efficacy. Teachers can reverse this perspective by
encouraging students to take on more challenging tasks, and take greater interest in
academics, stressing the development of higher self-efficacy. Research suggests
that teachers can strengthen self-efficacy by linking new work to recent student
successes, teaching the needed learning strategies, reinforcing effort and
persistence, stressing peer modeling, and helping students to identify or create
personal goals (Margolis & McCabe, 2004). Self-efficacy influences task choice,
effort, persistence, and achievement. Compared with students who doubt their
learning capacities, those who have a sense of efficacy for particular tasks
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participate more readily, work harder, persist longer, when they encounter
difficulties, and achieve at a higher level. Students do not engage in activities they
believe will lead to negative outcomes (Schunk & Zimmerman 1997).
Albert Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy developed within his studies of
human social cognition theories. Bandura’s early research focused on the
extraordinary symbolizing capacity of humans. He theorizes that people draw on
these symbolic capacities to understand the environments by purposeful actions,
cognitively solve problems, develop reflective thoughts and effectively
communicate with others. Bandura argues that when people symbolize their
experiences, it gives structure, meaning, and continuity to their lives (Pajeres,
2002).
Another distinctive quality of social cognitive theory, and an important point
in this theory, is that Bandura singles out the capacity for self-directed and fore
thought (that people plan a course of action, and set challenges and goals that guide
their future activities). Bandura argues that after one adopts some personal
standard, one’s subsequent actions, behaviour, and motivation are regulated by the
positive and negative consequences of those standards. People engage in things
that provide some form of satisfaction and self-worth, and tend to shy away from
actions that devalue the “self” (Pajeres, 2002).
Self-reflection capabilities concerning efficacy is featured prominently in
social cognitive theory. Bandura argues that the system of self-efficacy is the very
foundation of human motivations and personal achievements. Bandura’s rationale
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is like this: if people don’t believe they can achieve a desired outcome from their
actions, they have little to no incentive to act, or continue action when presented
with difficulties. Bandura’s research credits personal efficacy with motivation,
perseverance, vulnerability, life decisions/choices, and even stress (Pajeres, 2002).
Bandura connects self-efficacy with people’s motivations and actions,
arguing that what people believe influences motivation and actions, regardless of
whether or not the belief is “objectively true” (Pajeres, 2002). Bandura therefore
argues, that behaviour can be predicted by predicting perceived self-efficacy (a
person’s beliefs about the capabilities) over actual accomplishments, as self-
efficacy determines what people will do with their knowledge and skills.
Behaviour can sometimes widely differ from actual capabilities because of the
importance of perceived self-efficacy (Pajeres, 2002). For instance, talented
individuals may suffer from extreme self-doubt although they are quite capable of
performing and exceeding the assigned task, while on the other hand, some
individuals are usually guided by their beliefs. Remembering all of this, self-
efficacy is said to predict a person’s accomplishments than the person’s previous
achievements, credentials or knowledge (Pajeres, 2002).
It is however, important to remember that Bandura does not argue that large
amounts of self-efficacy (high confidence) can counteract limited skills and
knowledge. Self-efficacy can be different, in different areas of life, so it is
important to remember that self-efficacy is task specific.
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Pajeres (2002) argued that to help struggling learners with low self-efficacy,
and get them to invest sufficient effort and persist on challenging tasks, teachers
must systematically develop high self-efficacy within these students. Fortunately,
research suggests that teachers can help strengthen the self-efficacy of struggling
learners by:
1. Linking new work to recent successes
2. Reinforcing effort and persistence
3. Stressing peer modeling
4. Teaching struggling learners to make facilitative attributions.
5. Helping struggling learners identify or create personally important
goals.
However, for these strategies to be effective, struggling learners with low
self-efficacy MUST succeed on the tasks in which they expect they will fail.
Implications from research suggest that it is extremely important that class work be
at the instructional level of the students, and that assigned homework should also
be at a level that students can complete their home work independently, yet remain
challenged (NOT FRUSTRATED). Class work should increase expectations of
success instead of promoting failure. To do this, teachers need to: (a) Give
struggling learners work at their proper instructional and independent levels and
(b) adhere to instructional principle likely to improve self efficacy (Margolis &
McCabe, 2004). Whether the choice of the instructional materials from the senior
secondary school class two curricular for this study would help to improve the
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students’ expectation of success instead of promoting failure may be revealed by
the findings of this study, especially by the improvement of self-efficacy level of
the students.
Self-determination Theory (SDT) of Motivation and Interest
The Self-determination theory (SDT), according to Deci and Ryan (2002) is
based on the assumption that people are naturally inclined to integrate their
ongoing experiences. If external prompts are used by significant others or salient
reference groups to encourage people to do an uninteresting activity, the
individuals will tend to internalize the activity’s initially external regulation. That
means, people will tend to take in the regulator and integrate it with their sense of
self. This process will be fostered, if people are supported in their basic
psychological needs for competence and autonomy.
Accordingly, SDT proposes taxonomy of types of regulation for intrinsic
motivation that differ in the degree to which they represent autonomy (continuum
of regulation from controlled to autonomous, from amotivated to intrinsically
motivated (see figure 2).
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The approach of the SDT allows a finer analysis of motivational processes
than traditional conceptions. For instance, motivational regulations of the SDT
interpret the above figure with item examples as follows: -
Amotivated (AM) means No intention behind the behaviour; Item: “I really feel I
am wasting my time in school”.
External Regulation (ER): Motivated only by external contingencies (rewards or
the threat of punishment); Item: “Without pressure from outside I would do less”.
Introjected Regulation (IJ): Introjection of demands that pressure students, for
example, to avoid feelings of guilt; Item: “I have to give myself an inner push in
order to continue learning in my studies”.
Identified Regulation (IR): Identification with opportunities that are in
accordance with the learners’ own goals (but are not intrinsically motivated); Item:
“I am committed in my studies, because I want to realize the goals I set myself”.
Intrinsic Motivation (IM): No regulation by extrinsic rewards (curiosity, flow,
fun…); Item: “I really enjoy learning and working here”.
Amotivation Extrinsic Motivation Intrinsic Motivation Type of Motivation
Type of Regulation
Quality of Behavior
Non-Regulation
External Regulation
Introjected Regulation
Identified Regulation
Integrated Regulation
Intrinsic Regulation
Control Self-determination
Figure 2:- Continuum of self-determintion (Deci & Ryan, 2002 b: 16)
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The theory of interest is defined as an educationally relevant motivational
concept (e.g. Renninger, Hoffmann, & Krapp, 1998). The theory proposes a
person-object approach to interest and differs from most other motivational
concepts by its content-specificity (Krapp, 2002). The concept of interest can be
interpreted theoretically and investigated empirically either at the level of current
engagement (e.g. interest-triggered action) or at the level of dispositional structures
(e.g. students’ relatively stable subject-matter interest).
Interest has emotional and value-related characteristics. Emotional
Characteristics are the optimal level of activation and arousal (pleasant tension);
feeling of competence; empathic content – specific emotional experience.
Value – Related Characteristics concern the positive value – related valences the
individual assigns to situations. Item examples;
- “I’m certain that studying my major course has a positive influence on my
personality”.
- “Being involved with my major course puts me in a good mood”.
- “After a long weekend or vacation I look forward to getting back to my
studies”
Educational relevance of the SDT and the theory of motivation and interest
Educational – psychological research has highlighted repeatedly the
qualitative differences between intrinsically motivated and interested learners and
extrinsically motivated learners regarding the learning process, as well as learning
results. The advantages of intrinsically and interest-motivated learning appear in
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improved cognitive, emotional and personal outcomes as well as in the learners’
identification with certain content areas of their studies (e.g. Deci, Vallerand,
Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Reeve, 2002; Koestner & Losier, 2002; Muller & Louw,
2004). It is therefore obviously beneficial to design learning environments that
promote intrinsically motivated or interested learning. Unfortunately, one still does
not know enough about which environmental conditions are connected with
motivation. One knows rather more about how motivation and interest can be
undermined (Deci, Ryan, & Koestner, 1999). Most longitudinal studies in
educational settings demonstrate that intrinsic motivation and interest decrease
over the time.
From a theoretical point of view the psychological basic needs (Deci &
Ryan 2002a, 2002b) as well as aspects of recent constructivist instructional
approaches to learning (e.g. Prenzel, 1996) should be associated with self-
determined forms of motivation and with study of interest. One also assumes that
relatively stable personality variables are important pre-conditions of self-
determined motivation and study interest. Therefore, one takes the correlation
between personality (Goldberg, 1999), motivation and interest into account.
Personal interest in this model (figure 2) can be both a result of motivational
process and a precondition of intrinsic motivation and also of environmental
perception. The relationship between interest and intrinsic motivation may
therefore be recursive (Schiefele, 1996). In other words, a persistent appearance of
intrinsic motivation at senior secondary school or university is an important
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precondition for the development of a relatively stable personal interest in the field
of study. It is also probable that students with a certain personal interest are
learning in a more intrinsically motivated way than students with lower study
interest. In the present study, the findings would help to determine the extent
reciprocal peer tutoring can affect the interest of the senior secondary school
students in reading comprehension, especially when low interest rate had been
observed by some researchers (Ezugwu & Agwagah, 2000; Harbor-Peters, 2002)
A summary of the theoretical framework may indicate that at the zone of
proximal development, which Vygotsky’s social cognitive theory emphasizes,
students both give and receive assistance which could enhance achievement,
interest and self-efficacy beliefs. Enhanced interest, which is the focus of the Self-
determination theory of motivation and interest, could predict better achievement.
Improved self-efficacy, which Bandura’s social cognitive theory lays emphasis on
could generate better achievement, in specific tasks. Better achievement could also
boost the self-efficacy and interest of students in a given task, because of their
belief that they could perform better since they have been equipped with effective
strategy (See figure 3).
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Figure 3: Diagrammatical representation of the theoretical framework.
Empirical Studies
Studies Related to Reciprocal Peer Tutoring and Achievement
Reciprocal peer tutoring is a teaching-learning strategy in which students
assembled in groups of two or more are trained to work together on a specific
academic task. The students work together to prompt, monitor and evaluate each
other, while working toward goals.
Evans (2004) carried out a study on the effects of reciprocal peer tutoring on
academic achievement and social interaction of students with emotional –
behaviour disorders (EBD). The purpose of the study was to determine the
effectiveness of an author-developed treatment, Teaching Ourselves Positive Skills
(TOPS), to increase academic scores and positive tutoring behaviour of students
with EBD. The multi-component intervention combined best-practice strategies for
SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY OF MOTIVATION AND INTEREST
BANDURA’S SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY OF PERCEIVED SELF-EFFICACY
ACHIEVEMENT
VYGOTSKY’S SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY (AT THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT)
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reciprocal peer tutoring, direct instruction, token economy, self- and peer –
management, and planning for generalization. The ten-week study was
implemented in a 4th - 5th grade classroom in a public separate school for students
with EBD. Six students participated in the programme, although data were
collected for two students only, those who met established criteria of documented
academic and social deficits and 1Q scores above 70. They were 10 – and 11-year
old African American boys who were completing schoolwork at the 1st – 2nd grade
level and were having substantial difficulty with peer relationships. A multiple
probe across academic behaviour design was used to determine the effectiveness of
TOPS in increasing scores in Mathematics and spelling. Accuracy with which the
target dyads performed the intervention and inter scores reliability of academic
probes were recorded. Student and teacher acceptability surveys were completed
after training and at the conclusion of the intervention.
Academic scores increased from baseline to treatment phases for both
students, although limited data points and divergent baseline trends suggest
cautious interpretation of results. Single replication across additional facts and two
sets of spelling words indicate a tentative relationship between TOPs and scores
for both students. The dyad adhered to tutoring protocol with 85% accuracy
overall. Inter score reliability of academic probes was 100%. Positive tutoring
behaviour in the generalized setting increased substantially after students received
explicit instruction in the second setting. Students and teachers found TOPS fun,
easy, and beneficial for improving academic and peer interactions.
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Choudhury (2001) reported a study carried out by the Associated Schools of
Construction Fall also on the use of reciprocal peer tutoring technique in an
environmental control systems course at an undergraduate level Ifte Choudberry,
Texas A&M University. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of
reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) on students’ performance in one of the
environmental control systems courses offered by the Department of Construction
Science. The study population consisted of the students who attended the course in
summer terms of 1998 and 2000 and spring semester 2000. Sample size of the
study was 156 students. Relevant data were collected from the student Information
Management System database of the University. Chi-squire tests were performed
to ascertain the relationship between students’ performance and RPT. The findings
generated from the analysis of the data indicated that RPT has a statistically
significant effect on students’ performance in this particular environmental control
systems course at the 0.001 level.
They argued that this is probably because of the reason that cooperative
learning results in higher level of reasoning and more frequent generation of ideas
and solutions than individualistic learning. Literature indicates that students tend to
form multidimensional and realistic impressions of one another’s competencies
and give accurate feedback in a reciprocal peer tutoring process (Johnson &
Johnson, 1994). An informal discussion with the students using RPT revealed that
their perceptions about the technique were positive. Nearly all of them agreed that
the technique was useful because it forced them to apply the course content and
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provide additional review and practice. It made them better prepared for the tests
and to complete the major class assignments. However, the result should be viewed
with caution because the technique had been adopted for only one class in a
summer semester. For future studies, it will be worthwhile to use data from regular
semester with RPT effect. A chi-square test allows a researcher to make decisions
about whether a relationship between two or more variables exists; it does not
provide the strength of that relationship. It will be interesting to perform statistical
analyses that allow one to determine whether RPT continues to remain statistically
significant in the presence of other probable correlates of students’ performance
such as overall academic ability, class size, and gender differences (Choudhury,
2001). The study was conducted to observe the effect of RPT only on
environmental control systems courses. It may be useful to replicate the study to
find out whether RPT has similar positive effects on students’ performance in other
courses of study.
Griffin and Griffin (1998) carried out a similar study and investigated the
effects of reciprocal peer tutoring on achievement, self-efficacy and test anxiety of
undergraduate students. Forty-seven undergraduate education majors enrolled in
either human growth or development or educational psychology participated in the
study. Students developed a series of test questions, used these questions to quiz
each other prior to unit examinations, and provided corrective feedback to the
questions. Statistically significant findings were inconsistent across the
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experiments. In short, RPT appears to have, at best, inconsistent effects on
achievement, test anxiety and academic self-efficacy.
Fantuzzo, King and Heller (1992), carried out a study to find out the effects
of reciprocal peer tutoring on academic achievement and psychological
adjustment. The purpose was to perform a component analysis of the reciprocal
peer tutoring (RPT) strategy, which previous research had demonstrated to be
effective in producing cognitive gains, lowering subjective distress, and enhancing
course satisfaction. One hundred students were randomly assigned to one of four
groups designed to systematically compare the RPT strategy with its hypothesized
components: dyadic, mutual exchange, and structured-learning format. Pretest
analyses revealed no significant group differences in demographic variables or
pretest scores on course examinations and self-report inventories of subjective
distress. Further analyses supported past findings on the superiority of the RPT
strategy. This superiority was attributed to the RPT group’s unique combination of
elements: preparing to teach a peer, teaching a peer, and accountability for this
process.
In line with the above studies is a study carried out in Nigeria by Essuman,
Nwaogu and Nwachukwu (1990) on peer modeling or peer tutoring when
classmates or age mates model behaviours for others. The result indicates that
peers are known to respond to themselves faster than they do to adults, and this
helps children to learn new materials in academic situation. However, it should be
noted that the above study is similar to the present one because it involves the
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structuring of the environment so that pairs of the same age are grouped to practise
basic academic skills. It differs from the present study because even though it is a
one to one peer tutoring in which the peer tutor teaches academic skills to the
recipients, there was no indication of tutor/tutee roles being exchanged between the
subjects; therefore it cannot be called reciprocal peer tutoring.
Closely related to the above but different from pure reciprocal peer tutoring
was a study carried out by Igbo (2004) on effect of peer tutoring on Mathematics
achievement of learning disabled children. Primarily, the effect of peer tutoring
technique with 80 primary five children who were learning disabled in
Mathematics was examined. The study involved three research questions and
testing of three null hypotheses using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05
levels of significance. The pretest-posttest experimental design, which involved
experimental and control groups, was used. The subjects were identified by their
teachers and screened by the researcher as Mathematics disabled. The experimental
group received 15 sessions of 30 minutes Mathematics instructions from the peer
tutor. Mathematics Achievement Tests (MAT) constructed by the researcher, were
used to measure Mathematics achievement of the Mathematics disabled children.
The result of the peer tutoring technique indicated that the achievement of
Mathematics disabled children increased after five weeks of peer tutoring. Based
on the findings, it was recommended that teachers should apply peer tutoring
technique as an effective psychological strategy to help in minimizing learning
disability. The study by Igbo (2004) is similar to the present study because it
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involves the structuring of the environment so that pairs of the same age are
grouped to practise basic academic skills. It differs from the present study because
even though it is a one to one peer tutoring in which the peer tutor teaches
academic skills to the recipient who is a learning disabled child, the peer tutor does
not exchange roles with the tutee as is the case in reciprocal peer tutoring
technique.
From the literature reviewed above, it is evident that most of these studies on
reciprocal peer tutoring strategies were carried out in the western world. Therefore,
there is the need for the study to be carried out in Nigerian environment which has
a different socio-culture and educational background.
Studies Related to Interest and Achievement
A number of scholars have carried out research on interest. Sokan (1998)
observed that interests are crucial in making choices, in attaining perceived
abilities, expected success and anticipated satisfaction in life. In a study carried out
by Bakker, Dermelouli and Schaufeli (2002), on students and their interest, they
examined academic interest of students in Spain, Portugal and Netherlands
Universities, using burnout scales. Exhaustion, cynicism and reduced efficacy (as
very low interest indices) all showed negative correlation with academic
achievement. Engagement (very high interest indices) scales: vigour, dedication
and absorption showed positive correlation with academic achievement. They
stated that compared to poor achieving students, those who achieved better feel
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less exhausted and less cynical, experiencing more efficacy and vigour and report
being more dedicated and absorbed and vice versa. In other words, the more
efficacious students feel, the better their academic achievement. This could suggest
that students with high interest manifest comparable higher academic achievement.
Harp and Mayer (1997) carried out a study on the role of interest in learning
from scientific text and illustrations and on the distinction between emotional
interest and cognitive interest. The sample size was 74 college students from the
Psychology subject pool at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A 2 x 2
between-subjects factorial design was adopted and a one-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA), was used to analyse the result. The result indicated that a textbook
lesson may be made more interesting by promoting emotional interest through
adding entertaining text and illustrations with captions. In Experiment 1, skilled
readers who read summary text and illustrations about the process of lightning
performed worse on retention of important information and on transfer when
entertaining text, illustrations or both were added. In Experiment 2, skilled readers
rated entertaining text and illustrations relatively high in emotional interest and low
in cognitive interest and rated summary illustrations and text relatively low in
emotional interest and high in cognitive interest. The results suggest benefits of
cognitive interest over emotional interest for helping students learn scientific
explanations.
In another study on how seductive details do their damage: a theory of
cognitive interest in science learning, Harp and Mayer (1998) used 81
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undergraduate students from Psychology subject pool at the University of
California. A 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design was adopted and a one-way
analysis of variance was employed in analyzing the data. The result indicated that
in the 4 experiments, students who read expository passages with seductive details
(i.e. interesting but irrelevant adjuncts) recalled significantly fewer main ideas and
generated significantly fewer problem-solving transfer solutions than those who
read passages without seductive details. In Experiments 1, 2 and 3 revising the
passage to include either highlighting of the main ideas, a statement of learning
objectives, or signaling, respectively, did not reduce the seductive details effect. In
Experiment 4 presenting the seductive details at the beginning of the passage
exacerbated the seductive details effect, whereas presenting the seductive details at
the end of the passage reduced the seductive details effect. The results suggest that
seductive details interfere with learning by priming inappropriate schemas around
which readers organize the material, rather than by distracting the reader or by
disrupting the coherence of the passage.
Benton, Sharp, Corkill, Downey and Khramtsova (1995) carried out a study
on knowledge, interest and narrative writing. One hundred and six 9th graders and
203 undergraduates wrote a story about baseball for 25 minutes and then
completed a 39-item multiple-choice test of baseball topic knowledge. Students
also answered 6 questions about their individual interest in baseball. Confirmatory
factor analysis suggested that knowledge and interest tests measured different
constructs. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed Grade x Interest and Gender
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x Interest interaction on thematic maturity. Differences favouring female
undergraduates at low levels of interest disappeared at higher levels of interest, and
differences favouring male students at low levels of interest disappeared at higher
levels of interest. Topic knowledge predicted thematic maturity and was a better
predictor of the interestingness of students’ written texts than was individual
interest.
The effects of interest on the allocation of attention and the learning of
written materials were investigated by Shirey and Reynolds (1998). Twenty-three
college students read 72 sentences that had been previously rated for interest. The
sentences were presented on an Apple Ile microcomputer that recorded two
measures of attention: sentence reading time and reaction time to a secondary task.
After sentence presentation, students were given a cued recall test of the material.
Results showed that although interesting sentences were learned much better, less
attention was allocated to them; hence, attention did not serve as a causal mediator
between interest and learning. Results also indicated that subjects engaged in some
strategy independent of attention to learn the interesting materials. The present
study may reveal the extent active engagement of the students in their own learning
activities would enhance their academic achievements.
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Studies Related to Self-efficacy and Achievement
Self-efficacy functions as a motivational facilitator of learning and
performance. Agbomma (2006) cited Printrich and Schunt as reporting self-
efficacy as a crucial variable in both learning and performance of social, cognitive
and motor skills. They stated that learnt skills would be performed only when the
individual is well motivated to display them, and self-efficacy is a crucial variable
in this motivation to perform, that’s there has to be self-belief about the
appropriateness of the situation and the consequences being positive.
Kreitner, Kinicki and Buelens (2002) carried out a study of the relationship
between self-efficacy and task performance among Naval Cadels, and found a
strong linkage between high self-efficacy expectations and success in variety of
mental and physical tasks. In contrast, they reported that those with low self-
efficacy expectation tend to have low success rate.
On the job research, Kreitner (2002) used Mets analysis, comprising 21, 600
subjects and they found a significant positive correlation between self-efficacy and
job performance. Based on this result, they recommended that managers should
nurture self-efficacy beliefs both in themselves and other staff. The researchers
further described the relationship between self-efficacy and performance as
cyclical one, which can spiral upwards towards success or downwards towards
failure.
Similarly, Lent, Brown and Larkin (1984) carried out a study on the
relationship of self-efficacy expectation to academic achievements and persistence.
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The researchers used college students who pursue science and engineering courses
as subjects, and reported that high self-efficacy had been demonstrated to influence
the academic persistence necessary to maintain high academic achievements.
In another development, gender differences with regards to perceived self-
efficacy expectations and attitude towards task performance represent important
issues of research in area of education; and researches in this area seem to
concentrate on two dimensions, perceived self-efficacy and attitude towards task
performance such as computer operations. In a study aimed at investigating gender
differences regarding self-efficacy in the use of computers among 147 college
students, Busch (1995) reported that the result revealed gender differences in
perceived self-efficacy regarding performance of complex tasks in both word
processing and spreadsheet software. The gender differences are in favour of males
who had higher self-efficacy with regards to complex computing task than their
female counterparts. However, the researcher found no gender differences in self-
efficacy between males and females with regards to performance of simple
computer tasks.
In the study designed to examine the degree of teachers’ self-efficacy and
the moderating influence of gender on teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in the use
of computer in Nigerian secondary schools, Yusuf (2005) found the following:
1. On gender differences on teachers’ experiences of using computer and
proficiency in basic computer operations, male teachers had greater
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percentage scores than the female teachers and the result was in accordance
with earlier findings by Milner (1985), Summer, (1991) and Rich (1991).
2. On competence in the use of software, female teachers had greater
percentage scores on perceived self-efficacy than their male counterparts.
3. A statistical difference in the perceived self-efficacy was established on the
use of spreadsheets software in favour of female teachers. However, this
result was in contrast with the earlier findings of Milner (1980), Rich (1991),
and Summer, (1991).
In some other studies, researchers have reported that female students
perform as capable as their male counterparts in varied academic tasks. But in
general, girls were found to have lower self-efficacy particularly at higher
academic levels (Pajares & Johnson, 1996). In one of the studies conducted by
Pajares (1996b), he found gifted girls to be biased toward under confidence, even
when most students demonstrated over confidence in the academic task given.
Agbomma (2006) carried out a study to investigate the relationship between
science teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and job performance. Twenty schools were
randomly drawn for the study and all the 400 science teachers teaching in the
selected schools constituted the sample for the study. Three research questions
were stated and two hypotheses formulated to guide the study. A co-relational
survey design was adopted for the study since it seeks to establish the relationship
between two variables. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the
research questions, while t-test statistics and Pearson correlation co-efficient were
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used to test the formulated hypotheses. The result of the study revealed that there
was a positive relationship between the science teachers’ perceived self-efficacy
and their job performance. The result also indicated that there were no significant
gender differences among the science teachers in their perceived self-efficacy
beliefs.
From the literature reviewed above, it is evident that self-efficacy is a crucial
variable in both learning and performance of social, cognitive and motor skills.
Gender as a Factor in Achievements
Controversy over which sex achieves better in academics is evident. While
some research studies showed evidence of girls’ superiority over boys in reading
(Viadero, 1998; Umoh, 2001; Coley, 2001 & Newkirt, as cited in Onuigbo, 2008);
some studies reported that boys performed better (Sanguinetty, 1983; Okeke, 1990
& Harbor-Peter, 1990).
Onuigbo (2008) reported a study conducted by Lietz on the factors
influencing students’ achievement in reading comprehension at the fourteen-year-
old level. The result showed that gender had no direct effect on reading
achievement. In other words, being a boy or a girl did not directly contribute to any
substantial differences in the level of reading achievement. However, gender
directly influenced motivation, educational competence, expectations and reading
interest. Boys demonstrated a higher level of reading interest as well as higher
expectations with respect to future education and occupation. Girls on the other
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hand displayed a greater degree of motivation by spending more time per week on
homework than boys and generally having a more positive disposition towards
school work. Hence, gender differences appeared to exist with respect to the way
in which boys and girls attained their level of reading achievement. Closer scrutiny
of those instances where boys displayed a greater interest in reading than girls
revealed that the reading interest was not characterized by the volume of the
material to read, but rather on the type of material read as boys showed greater
interest in reading newspapers and magazine.
Lasisi and Onyehalu (1991) carried out a similar study to determine the
cultural and sex differences in reading comprehension among Nigerian ethnic
groups. The sample consisted of Igbo undergraduates (23 males and 70 females)
and Yoruba undergraduates (51 males and 45 females) of comparable academic
background. The subjects were duly exposed to a passage from Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart and later made to answer six comprehension questions based
on the passage. In the end, female subjects obtained a higher mean score ( =
16.47) than the males ( = 16.32) but the difference is not statistically significant.
Therefore, the data only gives partial support to the theory of greater literacy
efficiency of females over males.
The findings of Rutter, Caspi, Fergussen, Horwood, Goodmen and Maughan
as reported in Onuigbo (2008) indicate that boys were more likely to be diagnosed
as reading disabled than girls. However, the gender gap varied across countries.
Teacher characteristics were found to contribute to the size of the gap in
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comprehension. Commenting on the societal-cultural – educational factors, which
contributed to the differences, Johnson (1973) noted a possible “Pygmalion” effect
(where students may achieve to the level their teachers expected them) since it was
observed that at the time of Johnson’s study, all the Nigerian teachers believed
their boys to be better. At the time of that study, three-fourth of the primary school
teachers in the north were men and it was the American researchers’ observation
that most families desired an education for their sons while education of their
daughters had a low priority. Another reason for the gender disparity in reading
achievement is that provided by Ready, Logofo, Burkhem and Lee (2005). In their
opinion, differences in approaches to learning among children contributed to the
gender gap as young boys were rated by teachers as using fewer effective
approaches to learning especially in the area of attentiveness. Sokal, Katz, Adkins,
Grills, Stewart and Priddle (2005) observed that in early childhood, boys and girls
enter school with similar attitudes towards reading. But the achievement tends to
manifest in favour of the girls as they progress through elementary school and that
is probably because the boys disliked the kinds of things they had to read in school
and preferring magazines and adventure stories.
From the studies carried out by Okereke (2002) to find out the impact of
familiar quantities on pupils’ achievement in Mathematics, he discovered that the
primary school pupils are more favourably disposed towards problems involving
vulgar or decimal fractions using a sample of 320 pupils. He also discovered from
a study on whether sex plays any role in students’ academic achievement in
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Mathematics using 320 primary school pupils that boys performed significantly
better than girls in all the sections of the Mathematics instrument. Also discovered
by him was that the primary school pupils are more properly disposed towards
Mathematics problems involving whole numbers than those involving fractions.
Another study by Ekwueme and Nenty (2001) showed no significant sex
differences using a sample of 300 junior secondary school students but discovered
that boys are more stable solving the Mathematics problems than girls and girls
perform more in clerical errors than boys. Also among the few available studies
that have inquired into error differences in Mathematics due to gender, the results
have also been inclusive. Some studies show gender differences in the type of
errors committed by students while others have found no significant difference due
to gender in the type of errors committed by students.
From the literature reviewed above, it appears that gender issues on
achievement are inconclusive. This work seeks to contribute in resolving this
controversy on gender as it affects reading achievement. In addition, the study
would try to compare the different gender groupings and their effect on students’
reading achievement. The strong belief in Obollo Afor Education Zone is that
males are superior to females in everything that counts. Females are dependent on
males for initiatives and for leadership. Since RPT involves leading in turn, the
findings of this study would reveal whether the socio-cultural influences that
expose males to different leadership and problem solving situations and place
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females in a subordinate position would affect the achievement of the different
gender groups involved in the RPT.
Summary of Review of Literature
The review of available literature has enabled the researcher to provide
useful and clear information to the problem under study. From the review
undertaken, one can see that though different definitions of reading comprehension
were given, the agreement is that reading comprehension involves understanding a
text that is read, or the process of constructing meaning from a text. The secondary
school curriculum places a great demand on content acquisition and demands also
a broad set of skills as listening, thinking, and reading for comprehension. But,
most times, the teacher expects the students to learn without teaching them how to
learn, which leads to poor achievement in the senior secondary school certificate
examinations.
Literature tends to reveal that reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) has the
potential for helping students to understand what they read better than the
conventional method of teaching reading for comprehension. Reciprocal peer
tutoring was defined as a learning situation where students take turns acting as the
tutors and the tutees for instruction or review of academic materials.
Three theories are relevant for the study and they are Vygotsky’s social
cognitive theory, Bandura’s social cognitive theory and self-determination theory
(SDT) of motivation and interest. The study is however anchored on Vygotsky’s
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social cognitive theory. Emphasis is placed on the zone of proximal development
(ZPD), which is the most important concept among Vygotsky’s ideas. Vygotsky
defines ZPD as the distance between the actual developmental level as determined
by independent problem solving, and the level of potential development as
determined through problem solving under adult guidance or collaboration with
more capable peers.
Attention has been given to related studies in reciprocal peer tutoring and
achievement, interest and achievement, self-efficacy and achievement, as well as
studies on gender as a factor in achievement. Special attention was given to gender
factor in academic achievement. Evidence available shows that consensus is yet to
be reached on the influence of gender on academic achievement. Some studies
report significant gender differences in academic achievement, while other studies
suggest non-significant gender differences in academic achievement. There was
dearth of empirical evidence on gender grouping as a factor in achievement. This
study therefore, focused, in addition, on comparing the different gender groupings
and their effects on students’ reading achievement; to see whether the socio-
cultural influences that expose males to different problems solving situations and
place females in a subordinate position in Obollo Afor Education Zone would
affect the achievement of the different gender groups involved in the reciprocal
peer tutoring process.
Finally, results of empirical studies carried out overseas have shown that
training in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring strategies has a positive effect in
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enhancing academic achievement. A major problem as is evident from literature is
that there is a general dearth of empirical works in this area of study in Nigeria.
The differences between the cultures in which these studies were conducted and
Nigerian environment motivated the need for this study. It is the bid to fill this gap
that motivated this study.
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CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter presents the procedure for carrying out this study. Specifically,
it describes the research design, area of study, population of the study, sample and
sampling techniques, instruments for the study, experimental procedure, and
procedure for data collection and analysis.
Design of the Study
This is a quasi-experimental study on the effects of training in reciprocal
peer tutoring strategy on students’ achievement, interest and perceived self-
efficacy in reading comprehension. In this quasi-experimental study, there is no
random assignment of subjects. The specific design for this study is a non-
equivalent pretest-posttest treatment and control group design, with the
experimental group adopting a reciprocal peer tutoring approach and the control
group using the conventional approach. Intact classes were used in the study in
order not to disrupt the normal class structure. This design is represented thus:
Table 1: Quasi- experimental Design
Experimental Groups
Pre-test Treatment Post-test
Treatment
Control
O1
O1
X1
X2
O2
O2
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The symbols are defined as follows:
X1 = Treatment (Reciprocal Peer Tutoring)
O1 = Pre-test
O2 = Post-test
X2 = Conventional method
Area of Study
The area of study was Obollo Afor Education Zone of Enugu State. Obollo
Afor Education zone has three local government areas (Udenu, Igbo-Eze North,
and Igbo-Eze South) and 42 secondary schools (Planning, Research and Statistics
(PRS) Unit, Post Primary Schools Management Board (PPSMB), Zonal Office
Obollo Afor, 2009). The rationale for choosing this zone was that Obollo Afor
Education Zone is a place where there is the tacit assumption that males are
superior to females in every thing that counts. Females are dependent on males for
taking initiatives and for leadership. Besides, Obollo Afor Education zone was
chosen because students’ achievements in the West African School Certificate
Examinations had been observed to be discouraging.
Population of the Study
The population of this study consisted of all 2008/2009 co-educational
senior secondary class two (SS II) students numbering 1878 (716 males and 1162
females) in Obollo Afor Education Zone (Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS)
Unit, PPSMB, Zonal office Obollo Afor, 2009). The choice of senior secondary
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class two students was guided by the assumption that the students were in the
middle class of senior secondary classes. They were neither adjusting to senior
secondary syllabus as the SS I students were doing, nor were they preparing for
external examination, as the SS III students were doing.
Sample and Sampling Techniques
The sample size for the study consisted of 174 senior secondary class two
students, drawn from four intact classes in four co-educational senior secondary
schools, in Obollo Afor Education Zone.
Multi-stage sampling procedure was employed in drawing the sample for the
study. Initially, the researcher randomly sampled two local government areas from
the three local government areas in the zone. Stratified sampling technique was
employed to draw all the co-educational senior secondary schools to take care of
the gender variables in the study. From the co-educational senior secondary
schools in the two Local Government Areas, the researcher drew two schools each,
ensuring that each has at least one stream of SS II students.
In each of the schools sampled, one intact class was drawn, using simple
random technique, making a total of four intact classes. The intact classes were
randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions through simple balloting, so
that in each local government area, there was one experimental and one control
group.
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In each of the two intact classes drawn and labeled experimental group, the
subjects were further stratified into males and females. Simple balloting was
employed to organize the subjects into males only, females only and mixed gender
groupings. Each group in the mixed gender groupings had two or three
males/females, making a total of five students. This resulted to six males’ only
groups, six females’ only groups and six mixed gender groups, for the treatment
group ready for the experimental manipulation.
Instruments for the Study
Three research instruments were developed for use in collecting the data for
the study. The instruments are: -
i. Test of Comprehension (TOC) Forms 1 and 11
ii. Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale (SRCIRS)
iii. Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale (SSERS)
Development of the Instruments
Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form 1 was developed by the researcher
with the help of some qualified English language teachers in senior secondary
schools, and other experts in English language, Sciences, Social Sciences and Arts
Education. These subjects were chosen because they are the subject areas in which
students have been observed to have poor achievement. The interview conducted
with students also showed that the students find these subjects difficult because of
the volume of reading involved in the subjects. The comprehension tests were
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drawn from passages in Intensive English for Senior Secondary Schools 2, which
the students were not taught before the time of the research.
To develop the instrument, a test blue print was designed and used in
guiding the construction of the test. The guiding principles for developing the test
blue print were the emphasis on each aspect of the content in the curriculum and
the number of periods it can take a qualified English language teacher to cover a
particular unit. In addition to the above considerations, the objectives of the
contents taught were also considered. These objectives guided on the number of
topics for each of the units and the levels of questions generated. The test blue
print is as shown on table 2.
Table 2: The Test Blue Print for Developing the Test of Comprehension (TOC) Form 1
Content Lower order
Questions Higher order Questions
Total
Narouz’s astonishing experience
Sugar
The problem with religion in Nigeria
2 (1 and 2)
1 (5)
1 (9)
2 (3 and 4)
3 (7, 6 and 8)
3 (10,11 and 12)
4
4
4
Total 4 8 12
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Test of comprehension (TOC) Form II, was developed by the researcher with the
help of the same qualified English language teachers in senior secondary schools,
and the same experts in English language,Sciences, Social Sciences and Arts
Education, who helped in the development of the test of comprehension Form 1.
The comprehension test was drawn from equivalent passages in the same text with
TOC Form 1, ensuring that the content areas have not been taught to the students
before the time of the research.
To develop the instrument, another test blue print was designed and used in
guiding the construction of the test, following the same procedures with the test of
comprehension Form 1. The test blue print for test of comprehension Form II is as
shown on table 3
Table 3: The Test Blue Print for Developing the Test of Comprehension Form 11
Content Lower order
Questions Higher order Questions
Total
The disadvantaged learner
The solar system
The housing problem in Nigeria
2 (1and 2)
1 (5 )
1 (9 )
2 (3 and 4)
3 (6,7and 8)
3 (10, 11and12)
4
4
4
Total 4 8 12
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Students Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale (SRCIRS) is a
four point rating scale meant to determine the interest of the students in reading
before and after the training on reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. The scale ranges
from Strongly Agree (SA) (4) points, Agree (A) (3), Disagree (D) (2), to Strongly
Disagree (SD) (1). The items were developed from information acquired through
review of relevant literature (See Appendix Za)
Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale (SSERS) was developed by the
researcher to help determine the students’ perceived srlf-efficacy level in
performing some academic tasks. The questionnaire consists of 20 items on self-
efficacy for academic achievement.
The responses were rated on a Likert type rating scale structured as follows:
- Not at all (1 point), Very little (2), Some degree (3), A great deal (4) The students
were asked to indicate their degree of self-efficacy by ticking a number from 1 to 4
against any of the above stated options of response ratings. The items were
developed from information acquired through review of relevant literature (See
Appendix Zd).
Validation of the Instruments
The face and the content validity were established for the Test of
Comprehension Forms 1and 11.To ensure the face validity of the Tests of
comprehension, they were presented to three specialists in Measurement and
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Evaluation and three specialists in English Language Education. The comments
and suggestions of these experts were used in improving the test items.
The content validity of the Tests of Comprehension Forms 1and 11 were
ensured through the use of the test blue prints. This was achieved by ensuring that
the test items reflect the specifications of the test blue prints. Thereafter, the test
items generated were sent to the three experts in Measurement and Evaluation and
the three experts in English Language Education for comments and suggestions.
The experts were required to observe whether the items were representative of the
content and objectives.
Based on their comments and suggestions, some items were removed and
some others retained after their modification. The total questions used for the study
were 12 for TOC Form 1 and 12 for TOC Form II. Details of expert suggestions
for improvement are shown as Appendices L and M.
Two experts in Educational Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation
face validated the SRCIRS. These experts were asked to look at the instrument
with regards to the suitability of the language used and the extent to which the
items relate to interest in reading. Their comments and suggestions were used in
the modification of the instrument (See Appendix Z).
The SSERS was face validated by the same experts in Educational
Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation that validated the Students’ Reading
Comprehension Interest Rating Scale. These experts were specifically asked to
look at the instrument with regard to the suitability of the language used and the
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extent to which the items relate to confidence level of students in reading (See
Appendix Ze). Their comments and suggestions were used in improving the
instrument
Reliability of the Instruments
The internal consistency reliability of the Test of Comprehension (TOC)
Forms 1 and 11 was determined using Cronbach Alpha. Cronbach Alpha is applied
to instruments that are not scored dichotomously. An internal consistency
reliability estimate of 0.91 was obtained for TOC form 1 and 0.89 for TOC form
11 (See Appendices R and U).
The measure of stability of Test of Comprehension forms 1 and 11 was
established using the test retest procedure. The two tests were administered on 30
SS II students from a co-educational school (Community Secondary School Ogo-
Ikem) in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area of Enugu State. The school is in Enugu
East Education Zone, and therefore outside the study area. After 2 weeks interval,
the same tests were administered again to the same set of students. Using Pearson’s
Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient technique, the TOC form 1 yielded an
index of 0.88 while TOC form 11 yielded 0.89 (See Appendices S and V).
The test of comprehension forms 1 and 11 were further subjected to inter-
rater reliability assessment since the researcher used research assistants during the
rating of the comprehension test. Five raters were involved and the instrument
yielded an inter-rater reliability index of 0.95 for TOC form 1 and 0.92 for TOC
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form 11. Summaries of the computation of the Kendall’s (W) are shown in
Appendices T and W.
Furthermore, the measure of equivalence or relationship of test of
comprehension Forms 1 and 11 was established using correlation co-efficient
procedure. The two forms of the test of comprehension were administered on 30
SS 11 students from the same co-educational school in Isi-uzo Local Government
Area of Enugu State. Using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient
technique, the test of comprehension forms 1 and 11 yielded an equivalent index of
0.95 (See Appendix X).
A test of internal consistency was conducted for the SRCIRS using
Cronbach Alpha. Cronbach Alpha is applied to instruments that are not scored
dichotomously. An internal consistency reliability estimate of 0.89 was obtained
(See Appendix Zb). To test for stability, a test-retest was calculated using Person’s
Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient and an estimate of 0.99 was obtained
(See Appendix Zc).
To determine the reliability of Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale, the
internal consistency of the instrument was computed using Cronbach Alpha. The
internal consistency reliability of 0.86 was obtained (See Appendix Zg). To test for
stability, a test retest was calculated using Person’s Product Moment Correlation
Co-efficient and an estimate of 0.96 was obtained (See Appendix Zh).
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Development of Instructional Programmes
The Lesson Plans
The researcher prepared two sets of lesson plans. One set for the reciprocal
peer tutoring strategy and the other set for the conventional lesson plan. For each
lesson topic, a lesson plan was prepared by the researcher with the help of experts
in English Language Education.
Each lesson plan was designed for use in teaching for 40 minutes a period.
The samples of the lesson plans for the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and the
conventional lesson plan appeared in Appendices B and E.
Validation of the Lesson Plans
The initial drafts of the lesson plans were face validated by three secondary
school English Language teachers. Three experts each in English Language
Education, Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities from Colleges of Education
also helped in the face validation of the lesson plans.
Trial Testing
The face validated versions of the lesson plans were subjected to field trials
using qualified English Language teachers from secondary schools. The field trials
were done to assure the researcher that the lesson plans would be readily useable
during the main study. The field trials also helped to ensure that the lesson plans
were designed towards achieving the stated objectives of each lesson. Useful
feedbacks from the trial testing of the lesson plans were incorporated into the
present form of the lesson plans.
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Developing a Pre- treatment Training Programme in the use of Reciprocal
Peer Tutoring
A pre-treatment training programme was developed in order to equip the
students with the skills in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring before the
commencement of the main study, in order to enable them participate actively in
the learning process(See Appendix A).
Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Strategy Lesson Plan
This lesson plan was developed by the researcher with the help of experts in
Educational Psychology for the purpose of training the subjects in the skills
necessary for effective use of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy in pursing learning
during class learning interaction. In developing the programme, the researcher
identified and stated in behavioral terms the objectives to be achieved, identified
and stated the activities of the trainer and trainees, and the evaluation techniques to
be adopted.
The reciprocal peer tutoring training programmes were designed to last for
three weeks. The programmes were divided into 3 sessions with a session lasting
for 40 minutes. There was one session for each week as follows:
Week I= Reciprocal peer tutoring and comprehension on “the skin”
Week II= Reciprocal peer tutoring and comprehension on “choosing a
career”
Week II= Reciprocal peer tutoring and comprehension on “the computer age” (See
Appendices B and E).
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The reciprocal peer tutoring training programme was developed from
information acquired through review of relevant literature.
Validation of the Training Programmes
The initial drafts of the training programmes were face validated by three
experts in Educational Psychology from Universities. The comments and
suggestions of the experts were used in improving the training programmes.
Trial Testing
The face-validated versions of the training programmes were subjected to
field trials by the researcher. The training programmes were used in training the 30
sampled students from the one secondary school in Isi-Uzo Local government Area
in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
The trial test served the purpose of ensuring that the training programmes
were comprehensive and could easily be used. It also helped to ensure that the
training programmes were well designed to achieve the objectives of the
programmes. The feedback gotten from the trial test was used in shaping the
training programmes to the present forms.
Experimental Procedure
Before the commencement of the training, the researcher sought the co-
operation of the principals of the schools involved to enable him build in his
research programme into the school schedule without disrupting the latter. The
researcher did this by explaining the purpose of the study and the benefits that
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could be derived if properly conducted. This helped the researcher to obtain their
co-operation throughout the study.
The principals thereafter introduced the researcher to the English Language
teachers who served as the research assistants. The researcher took time to
familiarize himself with the teachers and discussed extensively with the teachers
on the skills involved in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, for the
teachers in the treatment group and conventional approach for the teachers in the
control schools.
The researcher was not directly involved in the execution of the treatment
programmes but gave the validated lesson plans to the trained research assistants in
both treatment and control schools. The English Language teachers in the intact
classes in the treatment classes received training separately from those teachers in
the control group before involving them in the trial testing for the study. The
objectives were to ensure that those regular English Language teachers who served
as research assistants acquired the necessary competencies for implementing the
programmes.
To determine the extent of mastery of the required skills by the research
assistants, the researcher used them to train other subjects not involved in the study
during the trial testing. A lot of mock sessions were carried out in groups with
males only, females only, and mixed gender groups. The researcher monitored
their performance during the mock sessions to determine the extent they could help
in achieving the purpose of the study.
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Two weeks before the commencement of the training, the English Language
teachers in the treatment group used the prepared pretreatment training programme
to teach the students the skills involved in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy (predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarizing and monitoring). This
was because if the students did not know how to implement the roles involved in
the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, the teaching and learning process, using that
strategy would be hindered. For the pretreatment, treatment and conventional
reading training programmes see appendices A, B and E.
Before the commencement of the actual treatments, the Test of
Comprehension Form 1, the Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating
Scale and the Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale were administered to the
subjects in the treatment and control groups. The pretest scores were used as
covariates to the students’ post-test scores. The English Language teachers
administered the test with the researcher in the background monitoring the whole
process. Efforts were made to subject all those who took the test under the same
conditions. The test was scored with the validated marking scheme designed for it.
During the actual treatment, instructions in English Language contents,
which were drawn from passages in Intensive English for Senior Secondary
Schools 2, covering Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities contents were given
to those in the treatment group and those in the control group. The purpose was to
expose the two groups to relevant experiences in the content areas in which they
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were tested at the end of the study. Each group was taught separately using the
appropriate lesson plan designed for the study.
The researcher was not directly involved in the teaching of the selected
topics. Instead, his role was to supervise and monitor progress. The two English
Language teachers in the intact classes in the two schools in the treatment group
taught using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, adhering strictly to the lesson plans
prepared for the purpose. Those teachers in the control group taught the control
group subjects adhering to the conventional lesson plan.
The classes for subjects in the treatment group and the control group were
held during their normal time on the school timetable. Each group met for 40
minutes a day, once a week, for three weeks.
The Test of Comprehension Form II was administered to the subjects in the
treatment and control groups as post-test; a week after treatment had stopped. This
was done along with the Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale
and the Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale.
The researcher administered the test through the same regular English
Language teachers who taught the contents. The researcher mainly supervised the
testing process. The administration of the test was conducted in such a way that the
subjects were exposed to the same testing conditions. Efforts were made to
minimize as much as possible cheating of any kind by the subjects. The test was
scored using the validated marking scheme designed for it (See Appendix Q).
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Control of Extraneous Variables
The researcher adopted the following strategies to ensure that extraneous
variables, which could affect the result of the study, were controlled and to ensure
that any change in behaviour of the subjects was as a result of training, using
reciprocal peer tutoring and not as a result of other factors:
1. Experimental Bias: - To avoid experimental bias, the students were taught
by their regular English Language teachers, so that the researcher was not
personally involved in administering the research conditions.
2. Pre-Testing: Pre-testing, which is administering research test to subjects
before the commencement of a study, sensitizes them to become aware or
suspicious of the purpose of the post-testing aspect of the experiment. In
educational setting where students prepare for their examinations from previous
examination papers, pretest questions may be carefully, repeatedly and
methodically studied by students prior to the post-test almost to the extent that any
observed improved performance on the post test by the subjects may well not be
because of effects of the experimental treatment. Different but equivalent test
passages (TOC forms 1and 11) were used for the study to avoid this internal
validity threat.
3. Teacher Variables: Errors that may arise as a result of teacher differences
were controlled. The researcher organized a pre-experimental conference for the
teachers that were used for the study. Separate conferences were organized for
teachers in the two groups. The teachers were also exposed to practical
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demonstration of the training strategies by using other students that were not
engaged in the study in mock sessions. The essence of the conference and the
mock session was to enable the teachers acquire the competencies for
implementing the experimental conditions, thereby establishing a common
instructional standard among the instructors. The teachers conducted the
experiment in their respective schools and during the normal school periods in the
timetable. The study was monitored by the researcher to ensure a uniform approach
as specified in the lesson plans for each group.
4. Inter group Variables: Because intact classes were used for this study, it
implies that initial equivalence was not achieved for the research subjects in the
two groups. In order to eliminate the errors of non-equivalence arising from the
non-randomization of the subjects, the researcher used the analysis of covariance
(ANCOVA). This invariably corrected for the non-equivalence among the research
subjects.
5. Subject Interaction: The researcher did not select treatment and control
groups from the same school to ensure that the students in the treatment and
control groups did not mix up at all. This reduced the errors that might arise from
interaction and exchange of ideas among research subjects from the two groups.
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Method of Data Analysis
The data collected by administering the various research instruments were
analyzed in line with each research question and hypothesis. Descriptive statistics
such as mean and standard deviation were used in answering the research
questions. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at
P< 0.05 levels of significance. ANCOVA was used to determine if there were
significant differences in the mean scores of the groups and subgroups.
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CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
The results of the study are presented in line with the research questions and
hypotheses that guided the study.
Research Question One
To what extent do the (a) mean achievement scores, (b) mean interest rating
and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of students depend on
exposure to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and conventional teaching method?
Table 4: The Students’ Pretest and Posttest Mean Scores and Standard Deviation in Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy in Test of Comprehension (TOC)
Experimental Group Achievement Interest Self-efficacy
SD N SD N SD N
Treatment Pretest 40.10 14.60 88 35.51 8.90 88 32.85 9.26 88
Group Posttest 64.23 17.30 88 62.51 18.31 88 64.84 18.51 88
Pretest/Posttest Mean
Gain Score
24.13
27.00
31.99
Control Pretest 41.17 15.75 86 36.80 9.09 86 33.29 10.35 86
Group Posttest 42.44 16.31 86 38.26 9.56 86 34.58 10.40 86
Pretest/Posttest Mean Gain Score
1.27
1.46
1.29
Total Pretest 40.63 15.14 174 36.15 8.99 174 33.07 9.79 174
Posttest 53.46 20.01 174 50.52 19.01 174 49.89 21.35 174
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Data presented in Table 4 above indicate the pretest and posttest mean
scores in achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of
students in the treatment and control groups. The students exposed to training in
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy had a mean pretest achievement score of 40.10
and a standard deviation of 14.60. The mean posttest achievement was 64.23,
giving a mean pretest/posttest gain score of 24.13. The students had a mean pretest
interest rating of 35.51 and a standard deviation of 8.90 with a posttest interest
mean rating of 62.51 and a standard deviation of 18.31.The mean Pretest/Posttest
gain score was 27.00. The pretest self-efficacy rating of the students was 32.85 and
a standard deviation of 9.26 while the mean posttest self-efficacy rating was 64.84
and a standard deviation of 18.51.
For the students in the control group, their mean pretest achievement score
was 41.17 and a standard deviation of 15.75 and a mean posttest achievement score
of 42.44 and a standard deviation of 16.31. The mean pretest/posttest achievement
gain score was 1.27. The students in the control group had a mean pretest interest
rating of 36.80 and a standard deviation of 9.09 with a posttest mean interest rating
of 38.26 and a standard deviation of 9.56, giving the mean pretest/posttest interest
gain score of 1.46. The mean pretest self-efficacy rating of the students was 33.29
and a standard deviation of 10.35 with a posttest self-efficacy rating of 34.58 and a
standard deviation of 10.40, resulting to a pretest/posttest self-efficacy gain score
of 1.29 The data indicate that the students in the treatment group had higher mean
scores in achievement, interest and self-efficacy rating than those in the control
124
group. This implies that the students in the treatment group, who were exposed to
training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy achieved better than those in the
control group, who were exposed to instruction using the conventional teaching
strategy.
A corresponding hypothesis formulated to further address the research
question is: -
Hypothesis One
There is no significant difference in the (a) mean achievement scores, (b)
mean interest rating and mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of the
students who were exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and those taught
using the conventional teaching method.
Table 5: 2-Way Analysis of Covariance on Students’ Post Treatment Achievement Scores on Test of Comprehension (TOC)
a R squared = .741 (Adjusted R squared = .727)
Source Sum of squares
df Mean Square
F
Sig.
Partial Eta Squared
Corrected model 51367.136a 9 5707.460 52.233 .000 .741 Intercept 7008.632 1 7008.632 64.141 .000 .281 Pre-achievement 23586.195 1 23586.195 215.855 .000 .561 Experimental 18595.849 1 18595.849 170.184 .000 .509 Gender 94.136 1 94.136 .862 .355 .005 Gender grouping 535.241 2 267.621 2.449 .090 .029 Experimental *Gender 45.947 1 45.947 .420 .518 .003
Experimental* Gender grouping
99.059
2
49.530
.453
.636
.005
Gender*Gender grouping 17.017 1 17.017 .156 .694 .001 Experimental* Gender* Gender grouping
.000
0
-
-
-
.000
Error 17920.083 164 109.269 Total 566570.000 174 Corrected Total 69287.218 173
125
The results presented in Table 5 indicate that reciprocal peer tutoring as a
factor in the study had a significant effect on the achievement of students in
reading comprehension. This is because the calculated f – value of 170.18 in
respect of treatment as main effect is shown to be significant at .000 levels and
therefore significant at .05 levels of significance. This suggests that exposing
students to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy significantly improved their
achievement in reading comprehension. This also means that the null hypothesis of
no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of the treatment and
control groups is rejected.
Table 6: 2-Way Analysis of Covariance on Students’ Post Treatment Interest Rating
Source Sum of squares
df Mean Square
F Sig. Partial Eta Squared
Corrected model 37859.019a 9 4206.558 27.984 .000 .606
Intercept 3303.071 1 3303.071 21.974 .000 .118
Pre-interest 7743.586 1 7743.586 51.514 .000 .239
Experimental 23690.934 1 23690.934 157.604 .000 .490
Gender 155.917 1 155.917 1.037 .310 .006
Gender grouping 193.497 2 96.748 0.644 .527 .008
Experimental *Gender 97.064 1 97.064 0.646 .423 .004
Experimental*
Gender grouping
97.773
2
48.886
0.325
.723
.004
Gender*
Gender grouping
3.733
1
3.733
0.025
.875
.000
Experimental* Gender* Gender grouping
0.000
0
-
-
-
.000
Error 24652.389 164 150.319
Total 506659.000 174
Corrected Total 62511.408 173 a R squared = .606 (Adjusted R square = .584).
126
Data in Table 6 indicate that reciprocal peer tutoring as a factor in the study
had a significant effect on the interest of students in reading comprehension. This
is because the calculated f-value of 157.60 in respect of treatment as main effect is
shown to be significant at .000 levels and therefore significant at .05 levels of
significance. This suggests that exposing students to reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy significantly increased their interest in reading comprehension. This also
means that the null hypothesis of no significant difference in the mean interest
rating of the treatment and control groups is rejected.
Table 7: 2-Way Analysis of Covariance on Students’ Post Treatment Self-efficacy Rating
Source Sum of
squares Df Mean
Square F Sig. Partial Eta
Squared Corrected model 55799.355a 9 6199.928 44.146 .000 .708 Intercept 5156.421 1 5156.421 36.716 .000 .183 Pre-self-efficacy 10810.806 1 10810.806 76.977 .000 .319 Experimental 34770.449 1 34770.449 247.580 .000 .602 Gender 140.846 1 140.846 1.003 .318 .006 Gender grouping 251.320 2 125.660 .895 .411 .011 Experimental *Gender 56.624 1 56,624 .403 .526 .002 Experimental* Gender grouping
261.758
2
130.879
.932
.396
.011
Gender* Gender grouping
1.084
1
1.084
.008
.930
.000
Experimental*Gender* Gender grouping
.000
0
-
-
-
.000
Error 23032.346 164 140.441 Total 511834.000 174 Corrected Total 78831.701 173
a R squared = .708 (Adjusted R squared = .692).
127
The results presented in Table 7 indicate that reciprocal peer tutoring as a
factor in the study had a significant effect on the self-efficacy of students in
reading comprehension. This is because the calculated f-value of 247.58 in respect
of treatment as main effect is shown to be significant at .000 levels and therefore
significant at .05 levels of significance. This suggests that exposing students to
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy significantly improved their self-efficacy in
reading comprehension. This also means that the null hypothesis of no significant
difference in the mean self-efficacy rating of the treatment and control groups is
rejected.
Research Question Two
What is the influence of gender on the (a) mean achievement scores (b)
mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of
students, based on the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy?
128
Table 8: Pretest and Posttest Mean Scores and Standard Deviation in Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy by Gender
Gender of Students
Achievement Interest Self-efficacy
SD N SD N SD N
Males Pretest 39.35 15.50 80 34.84 8.91 80 32.58 9.46 80
Posttest 55.36 20.82 80 53.85 20.48 80 54.23 22.52 80
Pretest/Posttest mean gain score
16.01
19.01
21.65
Female Pretest 41.72 14.83 94 37.27 8.96 94 33.49 10.09 94
Posttest 51.84 19.26 94 47.69 17.27 94 46.19 19.67 94
Pretest/Posttest mean gain score
10.12
10.42
12.70
Total Pretest 40.63 15.14 174 36.15 8.99 174 33.07 9.79 174
Posttest 53.46 20.01 174 50.52 19.01 174 49.89 21.35 174
Data in Table 8 show the pretest and posttest mean achievement scores,
interest and self-efficacy rating and standard deviation of males and females used
in the study. The males had a pretest mean achievement score of 39.35 and a
standard deviation of 15.5 with posttest mean achievement score of 55.36 and a
standard deviation of 20.82. The mean pretest/posttest achievement gain score was
16.01. The males had a pretest mean interest rating of 34.84 and a standard
deviation of 8.91 with a posttest mean interest rating of 53.85 and a standard
deviation of 20.48, giving the mean pretest/posttest gain score as 19.01. The pretest
mean self-efficacy rating of the males was 32.58 and a standard deviation of 9.46
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with a posttest mean self-efficacy rating of 54.23 and a standard deviation of
22.52. This gave the mean pretest/posttest self-efficacy gain score as 21.65. The
females had a pretest mean achievement score of 41.72 and a standard deviation of
14.83 with a posttest mean achievement score of 51.84 and a standard deviation of
19.26, resulting to a mean pretest/posttest achievement gain score of 10.12. The
pretest mean interest rating of the females was 37.27 and a standard deviation of
8.96 with posttest mean interest rating of 47.69 and a standard deviation of 17.27.
The mean pretest/posttest interest gain score was 10.42. The females had a pretest
mean self-efficacy rating of 33.49 and a standard deviation of 10.09 with a posttest
mean self-efficacy rating of 46.19 and a standard deviation of 19.67. This gave the
mean pretest/posttest self-efficacy gain score of 12.70. These results seem to imply
that the males differ in their achievement, interest and self-efficacy gains from the
females. Their higher mean point gains in achievement scores, interest rating and
self-efficacy rating show that they seem to have benefited more from the treatment
than the females.
A corresponding hypothesis raised to further address the research question
is:
Hypothesis Two
Gender has no significant influence on the (a) achievement (b) interest and
(c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students as measured by their mean
scores in (a) test of comprehension (TOC) (b) interest rating scale and (c) self-
efficacy rating scale.
130
Results presented in Table 5 do not show a significant difference in the mean
posttest achievement scores of male and female students exposed to training in
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. This is indicated by the calculated f-value of .862,
which is significant at .355 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels. The
null hypothesis of no significant difference in the achievement in reading
comprehension of students as measured by their scores in the test of
comprehension (TOC) is upheld. The implication is that gender had no significant
influence on the achievement of students exposed to training in reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy in reading comprehension.
Data presented in Table 6 do not show a significant difference in the mean
posttest interest rating of male and female students exposed to training in
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. The calculated f-value of 1.037 which is
significant at .310 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels suggests that the
null hypothesis of no significant difference in the mean interest rating in reading
comprehension of males and females as measured by their mean scores in the
interest rating scale be accepted. This implies that gender had no significant
influence on the interest of students in reading comprehension using reciprocal
peer tutoring strategy.
Results presented in Table 7 do not show a significant difference in the mean
posttest self-efficacy rating of male and female students exposed to training in
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. The calculated f-value of 1.003, which is
significant at .318 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels, indicates this.
131
The null hypothesis of no significant difference in the self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of students as measured by their scores in the self-efficacy rating
scale is therefore accepted. The implication is that gender had no significant
influence on the self-efficacy beliefs of students taught reading comprehension
using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
Research Questions Three
To what extent do different gender groupings affect the (a) mean
achievement scores, (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in
reading comprehension of the students?
Table 9: Pretest and Posttest Mean Scores and Standard Deviation of Students’ Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy by Gender Groupings
Different gender grouping
Achievement Interest Self-efficacy
SD N SD N SD N
Males only Pretest 42.56 14.25 59 38.42 9.55 59 36.31 9.99 59
Posttest 57.39 20.09 59 55.64 20.64 59 55.90 23.03 59
Females only Pretest 45.18 15.25 50 39.60 8.47 50 34.94 10.33 50
Posttest 57.70 18.79 50 51.48 17.81 50 49.98 20.89 50
Mixed gender Pretest 35.38 14.51 65 31.43 6.66 65 28.69 7.42 65
Posttest 46.63 19.25 65 45.14 17.13 65 44.35 18.77 65
Total Pretest 40.63 15.14 174 36.15 8.99 174 33.07 9.79 174
Posttest 53.46 20.01 174 50.52 19.01 174 49.89 21.35 174
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Data presented in Table 9 indicate the pretest and posttest mean scores in
achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students in the
different gender groupings used in the study. The males’ only group had a pretest
mean achievement score of 42.56 and a standard deviation of 14.25, with a posttest
mean achievement score of 57.39 and a standard deviation of 20.09. The group had
a pretest mean interest rating of 38.42 and a standard deviation of 9.55 with a
posttest mean interest rating of 55.64 and a standard deviation of 20.64. The pretest
mean self-efficacy rating of the males’ only group was 36.31 and a standard
deviation of 9.99, with a posttest mean self-efficacy rating of 55.90 and a standard
deviation of 23.03.
For the females’ only group, their mean pretest achievement score was 45.18
and a standard deviation of 15.25 with a mean posttest achievement score of 57.70
and a standard deviation of 18.79. The pretest mean interest rating of the females’
only group was 39.60 and a standard deviation of 8.47 with their posttest mean
interest rating being 51.48 and a standard deviation of 17.81. The females’ only
group had a pretest mean self-efficacy rating of 34.94 and a standard deviation of
10.33 with a posttest mean self-efficacy rating of 49.98 and a standard deviation of
20.89.
The mixed gender grouping had a pretest mean achievement score of 35.38
and a standard deviation of 14.51 with a posttest mean schievement score of 46.63
and a standard deviation of 19.25. The group had a pretest mean interest rating of
31.43 and a standard deviation of 6.66, with a posttest mean interest rating of 45.14
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and a standard deviation of 17.13. The pretest mean self-efficacy rating of the
mixed gender group was 28.69 and a standard deviation of 7.42, with a posttest
mean self-efficacy rating of 44.35 and a standard deviation of 18.77.
These results seem to indicate that males’ only group performed better than
the females’ only group in achievement, interest and self-efficacy rating. The
achievement of the females’ only group was better than the mixed gender
groupings. Interest and self-efficacy ratings of the mixed gender groupings were
slightly higher than the females’ only group.
A corresponding hypothesis formulated to further address the research
question is: -
Hypothesis Three
Gender grouping will not be a significant factor on (a) mean achievement
scores, (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension of students as measured by their scores in (a) test of
comprehension (TOC) (b) interest rating scale and (c) self-efficacy rating scale.
Results presented in Table 5 do not show a significant difference in the mean
posttest achievement scores of the different gender groupings exposed to training
in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. This is indicated by the calculated f-value of
.453, which is significant at .636 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels.
The null hypothesis of no significant gender grouping difference in achievement of
students in reading comprehension (TOC) is upheld. The implication is that gender
134
grouping is not a significant factor in the achievement of students exposed to
training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy in reading comprehension.
Data in Table 6 do not indicate a significant difference in the mean posttest
interest rating of the different gender groupings exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy. This is indicated by the calculated f-value of .325, which is significant at
.723 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels. The null hypothesis of no
significant influence of gender grouping on the mean interest rating of students in
reading comprehension as measured by their scores in the interest rating scale is
accepted. This implies that gender grouping is not a significant factor in the
reading comprehension interest rating of students exposed to reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy.
The results presented in Table 7 do not indicate a significant difference in
the mean posttest self-efficacy rating of different gender groupings exposed to
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. The calculated f-value of .932 which is significant
at .396 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels, confirms this. The null
hypothesis of no significant difference in the self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension of the different gender groupings as measured by their mean scores
in self-efficacy rating scale is upheld. The implication is that gender grouping is
not a significant factor in reading comprehension self-efficacy beliefs of students
exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
135
Research Question Four
What is the interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender
on the (a) mean achievement scores, (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-
efficacy rating in reading comprehension of students?
Table 10: Mean and Standard Deviation of students’ Achievement, Interest and Self-efficacy by Treatment and Gender
Data presented in Table 10 appear to indicate the effect of interaction
between reciprocal peer tutoring and gender on achievement scores, interest and
self-efficacy rating of students exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy in
reading comprehension. The mean achievement scores across the two gender
groups for the treatment and control group differ. This difference for the males is
25.57. In this group, the males in the treatment group had a higher mean
achievement score of 71.70 as against the 46.17 for the males in the control group.
Experimental Group
Gender of Respondents
Achievement Interest Self-efficacy
SD N SD N SD N
Treatment Group
Male 71.70 12.37 43 70.50 16.92 43 73.93 16.66 43
Female 64.92 19.40 45 60.60 20.03 45 62.52 20.66 45
Total 64.23 17.30 88 62.51 18.31 88 64.84 18.51 88
Control group Male 46.13 16.38 42 40.93 9.27 42 37.73 8.60 42
Female 38.79 13.38 44 39.57 11.53 44 36.71 11.83 44
Total 42.44 16.31 86 38.26 9.56 86 34.58 10.40 86 Difference in Treatment and Control Group by Gender
Male
Female
25.57
26.13
29.57
21.03
36.20
25.81
136
On the other hand, the difference between the mean achievement scores for the
treatment and control groups among the female students is 26.13. Females in the
treatment group had higher mean achievement score of 64.92 as against 38.79 for
those in the control group.
The mean interest rating of the two gender groups for the treatment and
control group differ. This difference for the males is 29.57. In this group, the males
in the treatment group had a higher mean interest rating of 70.50 as against the
40.93 for males in the control group. On the other hand, the difference between the
mean interest rating for the treatment and control groups among the female
students is 21.03. Females in the treatment group had a higher mean interest rating
of 60.60 as against 39.57 for those in the control group.
The mean self-efficacy rating of the two gender groups for the treatment and
control group differ. This difference for the males is 36.20. In this group, the males
in the treatment group had a higher mean interest rating of 73.93 as against the
37.73 for males in the control group. On the other hand, the difference between the
mean interest rating for the treatment and control groups among the female
students is 25.81. Females in the treatment group had a higher mean interest rating
of 62.52 as against 36.71 for those in the control group.
A corresponding hypothesis raised to further address the research question
is:
137
Hypothesis Four
There is no significant interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy
and gender on the (a) mean achievement scores, (b) mean interest rating and (c)
mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of students as measured by
their scores in (a) test of comprehension (TOC), (b) interest rating scale and (c)
self-efficacy rating scale.
Data in Table 5 indicate that the interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring
and gender on the mean achievement scores of students in reading comprehension
as measured by their scores in the test of comprehension (TOC) was not
significant. This is shown by the calculated f-value of .420, which is significant at
.518 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels. Thus, the null hypothesis of
no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on achievement is upheld,
since there was no significant interaction effect of treatment, using reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy and gender on the achievement scores of the students on the test
of comprehension.
Data presented in Table 6 indicate that the interaction effect of reciprocal
peer tutoring and gender on the mean interest rating of students in reading
comprehension as measured by their scores in the interest rating scale was not
significant. This is shown by the calculated f-value of .646, which is significant at
.423 levels and therefore not significant at .05 levels. Thus, the null hypothesis of
no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender is accepted, since there
138
was no significant interaction effect of treatment, using reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy and gender on the interest rating of students in the interest rating scale.
Data in table 7 show that the interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring
and gender on the mean self-efficacy rating of students in reading comprehension
as measured by their scores in the self-efficacy rating scale was not significant.
This is shown by the calculated f-value of .403, which is significant at .526 levels
and therefore not significant at .05 levels. Thus, the null hypothesis of no
significant interaction effect of treatment and gender is accepted, since there was
no significant interaction effect of treatment, using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy
and gender on self-efficacy rating of the students in the self-efficacy rating scale.
Summary of Major Findings
The results presented in this chapter highlighted the following major
findings.
1. Intervention using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy significantly improved
the achievement, interest and perceived self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of senior secondary school students.
2. Gender did not significantly influence the achievement, interest and
perceived self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students exposed to
training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. Males and females benefited
equally from the strategy.
139
3. Gender grouping was not a significant factor in achievement, interest and
perceived self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students exposed to
training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
4. There was no significant interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring and
gender on the achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of students exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
140
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS, EDUCATIONAL
IMPLICATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUMMARY
This chapter discusses the major findings of the study and their educational
implications. It also highlighted the conclusions, recommendations, areas for
further study and summary of the study.
Discussion of the Findings
The findings of this study were discussed under the following headings: -
1. Effect of reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) strategy on (a) achievement (b)
interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
2. Influence of gender on (a) achievement, (b) interest and (c) self-efficacy in
reading comprehension of students.
3. Effect of different gender groupings on (a) achievement, (b) interest and (c)
self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
4. Interaction effect of RPT strategy and gender on (a) achievement, (b)
interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
Effect of Reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) strategy on (a) achievement, (b) interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students: (A) RPT strategy on students’ Achievement in reading comprehension:
The result of this study revealed that training in the use of reciprocal peer
tutoring (RPT) strategy significantly improved the reading comprehension
achievement of senior secondary school students. The treatment group that was
141
exposed to RPT strategy had a significantly higher mean score in the test of
comprehension than those in the control group, who were taught using the
conventional teaching method.
This result is in line with the findings of some earlier research in other
cultures on the effectiveness of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy on students’
learning. For instance, Fantuzzo, King and Heller (1992), Allen (2003), Oczkus
(2003), Esteve (2005), found significant improvement in the achievement of
subjects after being exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. Furthermore,
Evans (2004) observed significant improvement in academic and peer interactions
of students with emotional behaviour disorders. The studies of the Associated
Schools of Construction Fall, as reported by Choudhury (2001) also indicated a
statistically significant effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy on students’
achievement in Environmental control systems courses.
The result however differs from the study of Graffin and Graffin (1998),
who reported that reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, appears to have, at best
inconsistent effects on achievements, test anxiety and academic self-efficacy.
Hanushek (1992) also found no significant achievement effect of reciprocal, peer
tutoring strategy.
Fautuzzo, King and Heller (1992) concluded from their study that the
superiority attributed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy over other strategies has
been as a result of reciprocal peer tutoring group’s unique combination of elements
such as preparing to teach a peer, teaching a peer, and accountability for this
142
process. These could explain the result of this study. Since reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy uses skills such as predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing,
which potentially help students to understand what they read, it could as well
enhance their reading comprehension achievement. Reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy, being a highly learner centered approach to problem solving, places the
responsibility of learning directly on the students. This situation therefore,
enhances the students’ achievement in reading comprehension, as the strategy is
very relevant in tackling most of the learning problems they encounter in school. A
situation that permitted the active involvement of students in the process of
learning as the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy did is a possible explanation for the
superior achievement recorded by the treatment group in the study.
(B) RPT strategy on Students’ Interest in reading comprehension:
The result of this study shows that reciprocal peer tutoring strategy
significantly enhanced the interest in reading comprehension of the students. The
treatment group that was exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy had a
significantly higher mean interest rating in the interest rating scale than those in the
control group, who were taught using the conventional teaching method.
This result supports the findings of other earlier research, which
demonstrated that interest affects the types of learning that occur. Harp and Mayer
(1997; 1998) demonstrated that interest affects the type of learning that occurs.
Sansone and Smith (2000), in a series of studies showed that individuals can self-
regulate in order to make tasks more interesting and subsequently to develop
143
interest in activities initially considered uninteresting. Wade, Buxton and Kelly
(1999), reported that the connections readers made between information and their
prior knowledge or previous experience increased their interest. Krapp (1999) also
found that presenting educational materials in more meaningful, challenging and or
personally relevant contexts could stimulate interest.
The result disagrees with Onyemerekeya (1998), who noted that under free
choice, students display a strong tendency for subjects that they enjoy most. He
argued further, that teachers need to arouse the learners’ interest in learning
activities by the use of a variety of instructional materials, using a variety of
questioning skills, especially higher order and divergent questions as well as active
participation by the learners in class activities.
Since reciprocal peer tutoring is a highly learner centered approach to
problem solving, and places the responsibility of learning directly on the students,
it potentially enhances the students’ interest and motivation, especially when the
strategy is relevant in tackling most of the learning problems they encounter in
school.
(C) RPT strategy on Students’ Self-efficacy in reading comprehension:
This study indicates that training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy
significantly enhanced the self-efficacy beliefs of students in reading
comprehension. The treatment group that was exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy had a significantly higher mean rating in the self-efficacy scale than those
144
in the control group, who were taught reading comprehension using the
conventional teaching method.
This result is in line with the findings of some earlier research work. Agbomma
(2006), Kreitner, Kinick and Buelens (2002), Printrick and Schunt (2002), found
correlation between self-efficacy and job performance. Agbomma (2006) found
that there was a significantly positive relation between the science teachers’
perceived self-efficacy and their job performance. Kreitner et al (2002) found a
significant positive correlation between efficacy and job performance in
organizational behaviour. Lent, Brown and Lerkin (1984) also reported that high
self-efficacy had been demonstrated to influence the academic persistence of the
college students necessary to maintain high academic achievement. The result
agrees with Margolis and McCabe (2004), which reported that teachers could
strengthen the self-efficacy of students who resist academics because they do not
believe they have the ability to succeed regardless of their effort. They concluded
that teachers can strengthen self-efficacy by linking new work to recent student
successes, teaching the needed learning strategies, reinforcing effort and
persistence, stressing peer modeling and helping students to identify or create
personal goals.
In reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, students work together to prompt,
monitor and evaluate each other, while working toward group goals, with the
underlying principle as increasing academic engagement, increasing the
opportunity to respond, and increasing timely feedback regarding students’
145
responses. It is therefore expected that reciprocal peer tutoring had predicted self-
efficacy in reading comprehension and therefore enhanced the reading
comprehension achievement among the senior secondary school students.
Influence of gender on (a) achievement, (b) interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students, based on the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy: (A) Influence of Gender and RPT on Students’ Achievement in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study reveals that gender had no significant influence on
the reading comprehension achievement of students as measured by their mean
score in the test of comprehension. The treatment group that was exposed to RPT
strategy did not have a significantly different gender mean score in the test of
comprehension.
This result does not agree with the findings of the studies by Viadero (1998),
Umoh (2001), Coley (2001), and Newkirt as cited by Onuigbo (2008). These
studies showed evidence of girls’ superiority over boys in reading. It also differs
from studies conducted by Sanguinetty (1983), Okeke, 1990) & Hrbor-Peters
(1990) and which reported that boys achieved better than girls.
The result is however, in line with a study conducted by Lietz as reported by
Onuigbo (2008), which showed that gender had no direct effect on reading
achievement. The study of Ekwueme and Nenty (2001) also showed no significant
sex differences among their students in common errors and achievement of
students.
146
The result of this study therefore, indicates that male and female students
benefited equally from the treatment. The fact that the interaction effect between
the treatment and gender was not significant shows that gender was not a factor in
the reading comprehension achievement of students exposed to reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy. The inconsistencies in the findings of studies reviewed and the
present study is an indication that gender factors in achievement remains an issue
requiring diversified attention. Males and females are naturally equal in
achievement. Females are not dependent on males for taking initiatives and for
leadership if given equal opportunities with males. Therefore, the socio-cultural
practices that discriminate against females need to be abolished.
(B) Influence of Gender and RPT on Students’ Interest in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study indicates that gender has no significant influence on
the interest of students in reading comprehension as measured by their mean rating
in the interest rating scale. The treatment group that was exposed to RPT strategy
had no significantly different gender mean interest rating in the interest rating
scale.
This result disagrees with the findings of Lietz as cited by Onuigbo (2008),
which reported that gender directly influenced reading interest. Lietz was quick to
point out however, that closer scrutiny of those instances where boys displayed a
greater interest in reading than girls revealed that the reading interest was not
characterized by the volume of the material to read, but rather on the type of
147
materials read, as boys showed greater interest in reading newspapers and
magazines. The present study however, drew the content areas from such
disciplines as social science, humanities and sciences, which were content areas
identified as presenting difficulty to the students due to the volume of materials to
be read (WAEC Chief Examiners’ Report, 2000-2005).
Evidence from literature indicates that reciprocal peer tutoring strategy
improves motivation by using discussion to enhance students’ reading
comprehension, develop self-regulatory and monitoring skill (Allen, 2003). This
could explain the result of this study. A situation which places the responsibility of
learning directly on the students and permitted the active involvement of students
in the process of learning without gender discrimination, as the reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy did, is a possible explanation for the equal interest which the male
and female students in the treatment group recorded in the study.
(C) Influence of Gender and RPT on Students’ Self-efficacy in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study indicates that gender has no significant influence on
the perceived self-efficacy of the students in reading comprehension as measured
by their mean rating in the self-efficacy rating scale. The group that was exposed to
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy did not have significantly different gender mean
scores in the self-efficacy rating scale.
The present study disagrees with the findings of some earlier research
studies of Busch (1995), Pajares and Johnson (1996), Pajares (1996b), and Yusuf
148
(2005), who reported significant gender differences in the self-efficacy beliefs of
their subjects in learning and job performance.These studies showed evidence of
significant gender self-efficacy differences in learning and job performance. Yusuf
(2005), found gender differences on teachers’ experiences of using computer and
proficiency in basic computer operations, with male teachers having greater
percentage scores than the female teachers. Pajares and Johnson (1996), reported
girls as having lower self-efficacy particularly at higher academic levels. Pajares
(1996b) found gifted girls to be biased toward under confidence, even when most
students demonstrated over confidence in the academic task given.
The present study is in accordance with the study of Agbomma (2006),
which revealed that there was a positive relationship between the science teachers’
perceived self-efficacy and their job performance and that there were no significant
gender differences among the science teachers in their perceived self-efficacy
beliefs. Literature indicates that self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel,
think, motivate themselves and behave. These may explain the result of this study.
Reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, being a highly learner centered approach to
problem solving and places the responsibility of learning directly on the students,
may be a possible explanation for the higher sense of self-efficacy demonstrated by
the students exposed to RPT strategy in reading comprehension. The no
significant gender influence demonstrated in the study shows that given equal
opportunities, females are not dependent on males as erroneously believed in the
149
study area. Females are capable of taking initiatives and can play leadership roles
if given the chance.
Effects of different gender groupings on (a) achievement, (b) interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students: (A) Effect of different Gender groupings on Students’ Achievement in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study reveals that gender grouping is not a significant
factor in reading comprehension achievement of students exposed to training in
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. The mean achievement scores across the different
gender groupings for the treatment and control group differ in favour of the
treatment group. However, the analysis of covariance for gender grouping main
factor indicates that gender grouping was not a significant factor in reading
comprehension achievement of students.
Though, there was dearth of research evidence on gender groupings as factor
in reading comprehension achievement of students, it could be said that this study
confirms the inconsistencies in the findings of studies on gender as a factor in
achievement in reading comprehension, and therefore this remains an issue
requiring diversified research attention. The finding however disagrees with the
tacit belief in Obollo Afor Education zone that males are superior to females in
every thing that counts (Ugwu, 2006). The study therefore, provides empirical
evidence that there is no gender grouping differences in reading comprehension
achievement, when reciprocal peer tutoring strategy is employed in training
150
students. Females are naturally not dependent on males for taking initiatives and
for leadership if given equal opportunities with the males. The socio-cultural
practices that discriminate against the females should therefore be fought by
allowing females equal chances to demonstrate their talents. Efforts should be
made to educate females on their potentialities to enhance their self-efficacy in
facing challenging situations.
(B) Effect of different Gender groupings on Students’ Interest in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study indicates that gender grouping is not a significant
factor in interest in reading comprehension of students exposed to reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy. The mean interest rating across the different gender groupings for
the treatment and control group differ in favour of the treatment group. The
analysis of covariance for gender grouping main factor however, shows that gender
grouping was not a significant factor in the interest of students in reading
comprehension.
The result is not in accordance with the study of Lietz as cited by Onuigbo
(2008) on reading interest. Lietz reported that gender directly influenced interest in
reading. Reciprocal peer tutoring strategy adopts thinking-aloud and discussion of
thought, using dialogue. The dialogue is usually structured by the use of four
strategies such as predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing. The goal of
RPT is to enhance students’ reading comprehension, develop self-regulatory and
monitoring skills, as well as achieve over all improvement in motivation (Allen,
151
2003), without gender discrimination. Reciprocal peer tutoring, which places the
responsibility of learning directly on the students, can arouse interest, which is a
necessary ingredient before learning can take place. When students are actively
involved in the process of learning without discrimination against any gender
group, as the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy did, a possible explanation for the no
gender grouping differences in interest rating as recorded by the treatment group in
the study can be given.
(C) Effect of different Gender groupings on Students’ Self-efficacy in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study shows that gender grouping is not a significant factor
in the perceived self-efficacy of students exposed to training in reading
comprehension using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. The mean self-efficacy
rating across the different gender groupings for the treatment and control groups
differ in favour of the treatment group. However, the 2x2 analysis of covariance
for gender grouping main factor indicates that gender grouping was not a
significant factor in perceived self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
The result of the present study agrees with the study of Agbomma (2006),
which found no significant gender differences among the science teachers’
perceived self-efficacy belief. It disagrees with the works of Busch (1995), Pajares
and Johnson (1996), Pajares (1996b), and Yusuf (2005), who reported significant
gender differences in the self-efficacy beliefs of their subjects in learning and job
performance.
152
Literature indicates that reciprocal peer tutoring strategy encourages higher
sense of self-efficacy among the users of the strategy (Bandura, 2000). This
explains the result of this study. A learning process that involved every student,
without discrimination against any gender group as the reciprocal peer tutoring did,
would be a possible explanation for the equal gender grouping self-efficacy rating
recorded by the treatment group in the study.
Interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender on (a) achievement, (b) interest and (c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students: (A) Interaction effect of RPT and Gender on Students’ Achievement in
reading comprehension:
This study was also concerned with the investigation of the interaction effect
of the independent variables involved in the study. The result obtained indicates
that there was no significant interaction effect between reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy and gender in reading comprehension achievement of students. In other
words, the relative effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy across the students’
gender was consistent. The result agrees with the study of Ekwueme and Nenty
(2001) which showed no significant sex differences in junior secondary school
students’ achievement in Mathematics. Ekwueme and Nenty were however quick
to remark that boys were more stable in solving Mathematics problems than girls
and girls achieved more in clerical errors than boys.
The result however disagrees with the findings of Okereke (2002) which
sought to find the impact of familiar quantities on pupils’ achievement in
153
Mathematics and discovered that primary school pupils were more favourably
disposed towards problems involving vulgar or decimal fractions. Okereke
discovered that boys achieved significantly better than girls in all the sections of
the Mathematics instrument.
The result also disagrees with the findings of Rutter, Caspi, Fergussen,
Horwood, Goodman and Maugha as reported by Onuigbo (2008) which indicated
that boys were more likely to be diagnosed as reading disabled than girls. The
gender gap was however said to vary across countries. Teacher characteristics
were found to contribute to the size of the gap in comprehension. Another reason
for the gender disparity in reading comprehension achievement is that provided by
Ready, Logofo, Burkhem and Lee (2005). In their opinion, differences in
approaches to learning among children contributed to the gender gap, as young
boys were rated by teachers as using fewer effective approaches to learning,
especially in area of attentiveness. Since reciprocal peer tutoring involves active
participation of all the students, without gender discrimination, it is not surprising
that there were no differences in the interaction of the treatment and gender on
achievement.
(B) Interaction effect of RPT and Gender on Students’ Interest in reading
comprehension:
The result obtained in this study indicates that there was no significant
interaction effect between reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender in interest of
students in reading comprehension. This means that the relative effect of reciprocal
154
peer tutoring strategy across the students’ gender was consistent. Both male and
female students consistently benefited from the treatment with uniform amount of
interest. The result is in line with the report of Onuigbo (2008) who indicated that
Lietz investigated the effect of gender on reading achievement and found that
gender had no direct effect on reading achievement. Lietz however indicated that
gender directly influenced motivation, educational competence, expectations and
reading interest. Boys demonstrated a higher level of reading interest as well as
higher expectations with respect to future education and occupation. Girls on the
other hand displayed a greater degree of motivation by spending more time per
week on homework than boys and generally having a more positive disposition
towards school work. Hence, gender differences appeared to exist with respect to
the way in which girls attained their level of achievement. Closer scrutiny of those
instances where boys displayed a greater interest in reading than girls revealed that
the reading interest was not characterized by the volume of materials read, but
rather on the type materials read, as boys showed greater interest in reading news
papers and magazines. The no interaction effect between the treatment and gender
may have resulted from exposing the students to active participation in the
reciprocal tutoring process without gender discrimination.
(C) Interaction effect of RPT and Gender on Students’ Self-efficacy in reading
comprehension:
The result of this study reveals that there was no significant interaction
effect between the independent variables: reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and
155
gender in the perceived self-efficacy beliefs of the students in reading
comprehension. In other words, the relative effect of reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy across the students’ gender was consistent. Both male and female students
consistently cultivated higher sense of self-efficacy in reading comprehension as a
result of their exposure to the use of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
The result disagrees with the finding of Busch (1985) which aimed at
investigating gender differences regarding self-efficacy in the use of computers
among college students. The result revealed gender differences in perceived self-
efficacy regarding performance of complex tasks in both word processing and
spreadsheet software. The gender differences were in favour of males, who had
higher self-efficacy with regards to complex computing tasks than their female
counterparts. However, the researcher found no gender difference in simple
computer tasks.
The result agrees with the findings of Agbomma (2006) who carried out a
study to investigate the relationship between Science teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
and job performance. The result of the study revealed that there was a positive
relationship between the science teachers’ perceived self-efficacy beliefs. The
result also indicated that there were no significant gender differences among
Science teachers in their perceived self-efficacy beliefs and job performance. The
non gender discriminatory approach in the acquisition of the learning strategy
could have increased the confidence with which the students approached the
learning task as well as their motivation and persistence to work even in the midst
156
of difficult comprehension problem. They could uniformly believe that they could
achieve better since they have been equipped with effective strategy.
Conclusions
From the findings of the study and the discussion that followed, the
following conclusions were made:
(1) Intervention using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy significantly improved
the achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of
senior secondary school students. The students exposed to reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy demonstrated significantly better performance in
achievement and higher scores in interest and self-efficacy rating than those
in the control group, who were taught using the conventional teaching
method, indicating the effectiveness of reciprocal peer tutoring in improving
achievement and enhancing interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension.
(2) Gender had no significant influence on achievement, interest and perceived
self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students. In other words, both
male and female students benefited uniformly from the treatment.
(3) Gender grouping was not a significant factor in achievement, interest and
self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
157
(4) The interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender on
achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students
was not significant.
Educational Implications of the Findings
The results of this study have obvious educational implications. The results
of this study have provided empirical evidence in respect of the effectiveness of
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy in improving achievement, interest and self-
efficacy in reading comprehension of students. The findings suggest the need for
students to be equipped with relevant skills in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy in order to facilitate their learning in content areas like humanities, social
science, sciences and other related subjects. This demands that the teacher in
preparing to teach does not only bother about how best to teach the content of
instruction, but also about the strategy the leaner can personally manipulate to
learn the content.
The fact that training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy facilitates better
achievement, higher interest and higher self-efficacy in reading comprehension
suggests that teachers would achieve better results if trained on how to teach RPT
strategy. Experience has shown that teachers during their preparatory stage are
never exposed to skills required in using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and how
best to plan RPT strategy instruction. The findings of this study imply that teachers
should be taught how to help students acquire skills required in the use of RPT
158
strategy. As such, teacher preparation institutions should not only emphasize
methods of teaching in their methodology course, but also the teaching of learning
strategies. If the teachers become aware of the importance of RPT strategy in
enhancing learning, the problem of poor achievement in subjects that require
reading comprehension currently experienced in our schools may be reduced.
The findings of this study also have implication for curriculum planners. The
efficacy of training in RPT strategy implies that those who plan secondary school
curriculum should sensitize the teachers on when to appropriately apply the
strategy by providing a guide for teachers in the curriculum. The curriculum should
not only specify appropriate teaching methods for a unit of study, there is also the
need to specify appropriate learning strategies that students can utilize to achieve
the objectives of the unit. Curriculum planners for teacher training institutions
should also incorporate the RPT strategy as a unit of study in the methodology
course in such institutions.
The findings from this study require that textbook writers should provide
study guides for students in their books by identifying relevant and appropriate
learning strategy that can help the reader to better master the required learning
task.
The results of this study indicate that training in reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy uniformly improved significantly the achievement, interest and self-
efficacy of both male and female students in reading comprehension. The non-
significant interaction effect between the treatment and gender provided additional
159
evidence that the enhanced achievement, interest and self-efficacy of the male and
female students in the treatment group was as a result of training in reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy. This implies that males and females could be exposed to the
skills in using reciprocal peer tutoring without discrimination as the two levels of
gender benefit equally and significantly from such strategy instruction.
The results of this study also indicate that training in reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy improved significantly the achievement, interest and self-efficacy of males
only group, females only group and mixed gender group in reading
comprehension. This implies that the males only group, females only group and
mixed gender group could be exposed to the skills in using reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy without discrimination as the different gender groupings benefit
significantly from such strategy instruction.
Recommendations
Based on the findings of this study and their educational implications, the
following recommendations are made:
1. Training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy is effective in enhancing
students’ achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading comprehension.
Therefore, emphasis should be given to equipping students with the
necessary skills in using the strategy.
2. Teacher preparation institutions should incorporate reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy in the relevant areas of their curriculum units and expose both the
160
pre-service and in-service teachers to these techniques of teaching and
learning. This would involve instructing teachers on the basic concepts of
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, the designing and development of RPT
strategy training programmes and how best to train learners in the various
types of learning strategies. This exposure will help to develop in the
teachers the competencies necessary for helping the students to effectively
use the RPT strategy.
3. Federal and State Ministries of Education and relevant professional
associations interested in the problems of learning in schools should
organize seminars/workshops and conferences on the importance of
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy as an aid to students’ learning; the designing
and development of reciprocal peer tutoring training programmes, and
procedures in training learners in the use of the strategy. This is necessary
because many of the practising teachers may not be familiar with the skills
involved in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy, not to talk of teaching students
how they can be effectively applied in learning.
4. Writers of textbooks should be encouraged to include in their study guides
specifying the relevant learning strategies that students can utilize at any
particular point. This will help students in the judicious expenditure of effort
and to focus their attention on the learning task.
5. Male and female students should be exposed to training in reciprocal peer
tutoring strategy without discrimination, since the evidence is that the use of
161
the strategy significantly improves their achievement, interest and self-
efficacy in reading comprehension.
6. Relevant governmental agencies and professional bodies should sponsor
further research on the effectiveness of reciprocal peer tutoring in other
content areas not covered by this study.
Limitations of the Study
1. The conclusions and generalizations of this study could be limited by the
adoption of a quasi – experimental design. Though attempts were made to
control the extraneous variables that could affect the result of the study,
quasi-experimental design, by its nature cannot ensure adequate control of
all extraneous variables. A true experimental design would have ensured a
more generalizable result, but it was not possible in this study.
2. The use of the regular English language teachers in the sampled schools to
teach the content areas required for the study could have introduced teacher
bias. This situation may have introduced some extraneous factors in the
teaching or training conditions across the four schools and also between the
treatment and control conditions.
162
Suggestions for Further Studies
Based on the findings of this study, the following areas are recommended for
further research:
1. Replication of this study in other parts of the country to find out the effects
of training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy on achievement, interest and
self-efficacy in different subject areas and in different population.
2. Examine location and ability as factors on the effect of training in reciprocal
peer tutoring strategy on achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of students.
3. Find out the influence of age on the effect of training in reciprocal peer
tutorial strategy on achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of students.
4. Examine the effect of training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy on the
academic achievement, interest and self-efficacy of under achievers in
reading comprehension.
Summary of the Study
This study sought to explore the effects of training in reciprocal peer
tutoring (RPT) strategy on achievement, interest and perceived self-efficacy in
reading comprehension of senior secondary students. This desire was motivated by
the need to determine whether training in reciprocal peer tutoring strategy will
contribute to improving students’ achievement, interest and self-efficacy,
163
considering the observed poor achievement of students in almost all school
subjects, especially in social sciences, sciences and humanities, due to the volume
of materials to be read.
To guide the study, the following research questions were posed:
1. To what extent do the (a) mean achievement scores (b) mean interest rating
and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of students
depend on exposure to reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and conventional
teaching method?
2. What is the influence of gender on the (a) mean achievement scores, (b)
mean interest rating, and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension of students, based on the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy?
3. To what extent do different gender groupings affect the (a) mean
achievement scores (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating
in reading comprehension of the students?
4. What is the interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender
on the (a) mean achievement scores, (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean
self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of students?
To further help in answering the research questions, the following
hypotheses were formulated and tested at .05 levels of significance:
1. There is no significant difference in the (a) mean achievement scores, (b)
mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
164
comprehension of students who were exposed to reciprocal peer tutoring
(RPT) strategy and those taught using the conventional teaching method.
2. Gender has no significant influence on the (a) achievement (b) interest and
(c) self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students as measured by their
mean scores in (a) test of comprehension (TOC), (b) interest rating scale and
(c) self-efficacy rating scale.
3. Gender groupings will not be a significant factor on (a) mean achievement
scores, (b) mean interest rating and (c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading
comprehension of students as measured by their scores in (a) test of
comprehension (TOC), (b) interest rating scale and (c) self-efficacy rating
scale.
4. There is no significant interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy
and gender on the (a) mean achievement scores (b) mean interest rating and
(c) mean self-efficacy rating in reading comprehension of students as
measured by their scores in (a) test of comprehension (TOC) (b) interest
rating scale and (c) self-efficacy rating scale.
Relevant literature was reviewed and the literature search indicates that
achievement, interest and self-efficacy of students improved with training in
reciprocal peer tutoring strategy. These reported studies were, however foreign.
There were no consistent findings on the effect of gender and gender groupings on
achievement, interest and self-efficacy.
165
The research design adopted by this study was a non-equivalent control
group design with one treatment and one control group. A total of 174 senior
secondary school students randomly drawn from four co-educational senior
secondary schools in Udenu and Igboeze North Local Government Areas in Obollo
Afor Education Zone of Enugu State were used for the study. In each school, one
intact class was randomly drawn and the intact classes were also randomly
assigned to the treatment and control conditions.
The regular English language teachers in the schools sampled were used as
the research assistants to train the students in the use of reciprocal peer tutoring
strategy, using the content selected for the study. Measures were adopted to control
possible extraneous influences capable of jeopardizing the validity of the study.
Three research instruments namely: Test of comprehension (TOC),
Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest Rating Scale (SRCIRS,), Students’
Self-Efficacy Rating Scale (SSERS) and two training programmes namely:
Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Strategy Lesson Plan (RPTSLP) and Conventional
Lesson Plan were developed, validated and used for the study. The Test of
Comprehension (TOC) form I, SRCIRS and SSERS were used for pre-treatment
assessment, while the Test of Comprehension (TOC) form II, SRCIRS and SSERS
were used for post-treatment assessment. Internal consistency reliability
coefficients were determined for the three instruments. The calculated reliability
coefficient estimates for test of comprehension forms I and II were 0.91 and 0.89
respectively, while the estimates for the Students’ Reading Comprehension Interest
166
Rating Scale and Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale were 0.89 and 0.86
respectively.
Data obtained through the administration of the three instruments were
organized and analyzed using mean scores, standard deviation and 2 x 2 analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA), which revealed the following findings.
1. Intervention using reciprocal peer tutoring strategy significantly improved
the achievement, interest and perceived self-efficacy in reading
comprehension of senior secondary school students.
2. Gender had no significant influence on achievement, interest and self-
efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
3. Gender grouping was not a significant factor in achievement, interest and
self-efficacy in reading comprehension of students.
4. The interaction effect of reciprocal peer tutoring strategy and gender on
achievement, interest and self-efficacy in reaching comprehension of
students was not significant.
The findings of this study were elaborately discussed, their educational
implications and recommendations highlighted. Suggestions for further research
and limitations of the study were also identified.
167
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APPENDIX A
PRE-TREATMENT TRAINING PROGRAMME
Presented below are the activities of the trainer and the students in the 4
sessions of the pre-treatment training programme.
WEEK 1/ SESSION 1
Time: 40 Minutes
Objectives: -
(a) Establishing rapport with the students
(b) Explaining the purpose of the programme to the students.
(c) Stating the guiding rules of the pre-training programme
(d) Explaining the meaning of predicting strategies
(e) State things that are used to make predictions
(f) Explain the importance of predicting strategies in learning
(g) Give instances of the kinds of learning tasks in which predicting strategies
could be employed
(h) Identify other activities of man other than learning in which prediction is
important.
Activities:
1. Since the regular English language teacher would serve as the research
assistant who will train the subjects he/she is familiar with the students and
no need for fresh introduction of both trainer and trainees.
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2. The trainer explains to the students the purpose of the training and what they
stand to benefit at the end of the programme and solicit their co-operation.
3. The trainer also states the guiding rules for the training programme.
4. The trainer explains to the students that any one who attends all the sessions
will be given a special prize.
5. The trainer with the students chooses two free periods in the week that will
be convenient for them.
6. The trainer entertains questions from the students and makes the necessary
clarifications.
7. The trainer takes time to explain to the subjects the meaning of predicting
strategies. He indicates that to predict is to say that something will happen in
future. He explains this further with illustrative examples. The students are
made to think aloud in their response.
8. The trainer asks the students to point out the different things that are used to
make predictions. Based on their responses, the trainer guides the students to
point out things that are used to make predictions like what you know
already, what you have seen before etc
9. The trainer asks the students to state the importance of predicting strategies
in learning. The trainer encourages the active participation of all the subjects
and reinforces their responses as appropriate. He explains to them how
predicting strategies facilitate learning and ensure retention and recall.
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10. The students are called upon to give instances of the kind of learning tasks in
which predicting strategies could be applied. The trainer encourages the
students in their attempts and helps them to identify the kinds of learning
tasks in which predicting strategies could best be employed.
11. The trainer asks the students to identify other activities of man which
prediction is needed for effectiveness and efficiency. Based on their
responses, the trainer will guide them to find out other situations of life
where prediction is very important.
Evaluation:
The trainer asks the following questions to find out the extent the objectives
of the session are achieved:
a) Explain the meaning of predicting strategies
b) State the things that are used to make predictions
c) Explain the importance of predicting strategies in learning
d) Give instances of the kinds of learning tasks in which predicting strategies
could be employed.
e) Identify other activities of man other than learning in which prediction is
important.
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WEEK 1/ SESSION 2
Time: 40 Minutes
Objective: - At the end of the session, the students should be able to
a) Explain the meaning of clarifying strategies
b) State different ways that are used to make clarifications
c) Explain the importance of clarification strategies in learning
d) Give instances of the kinds of learning tasks in which clarification strategies
could be employed.
e) Identify other activities of man other than learning in which clarification is
important.
Activities:
1. The trainer takes time to explain to the students the meaning of clarifying
strategies. He indicates that to clarify is to make something clearer or easier
to understand. He does this with illustrative examples.
2. The trainer asks the students to state ways that are used to make
clarification. Based on their responses, the trainer guides the students to
indicate different ways that are used to make clarification like backtracking,
which is similar to re-reading material when you realize that you have lost
your way in the story; looking for familiar landmarks which is similar to
readers activating prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax;
referring to outside source, such as dictionaries or atlases etc.
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3. The trainer asks the students to explain the importance of clarification in
learning. The trainer encourages the active participation of all the subjects
and reinforces their responses as appropriate. He explains to them how
pretending they are not lost is not going to get them out of the woods, and
pretending to understand what they are reading when they really did not will
not enable them to fully understand the reading assignment.
4. The students are called upon to give instances of the kinds of learning tasks
in which clarification could best be employed. The trainer encourages them
to identify the kinds of learning tasks in which clarification could be applied,
indicating that clarification can be applied in all subjects that require reading
for comprehension.
5. The trainer asks the students to identify other activities of man, which
require clarification for effectiveness and efficiency. Based on their
responses, the trainer will guide them to find out other situations of lives
where clarification is very important especially when one is in doubt.
Evaluation:
a) Explain the meaning of clarification strategies.
b) Explain the different ways that are used to make clarification.
c) Explain the importance of clarification strategies in learning.
d) Give instances of the kinds of learning tasks in which clarification strategies
can be applied.
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e) Identify other activities of man other than learning in which clarification is
important.
WEEK 2 / SESSION 3
Time: 40 Minutes
Objective: At the end of the session, the students should be able to: -
(a) Explain the concept of self questioning strategy
(b) Discuss the benefits of learning the strategy
(c) Describe the steps involved in self-questioning strategy.
(d) Model self-questioning before, during and after reading
Activities:
1. The trainer asks the students to explain what they understand by the term
self-questioning. The trainer allows the students as much as possible to make
attempts. The trainer then provides the students with a clear definition of
self-questioning strategy and illustrates with simple examples. Self-
questioning strategy is a learning strategy that can be used in a learning task.
In a reading comprehension task, self-questioning enables a student to
generate questions that will direct his focus and guide his thinking about
what he is reading in line with the authors’ message. In a comprehension
passage entitled “Entertainment industry” for instance, the learner can ask
himself such questions as what exactly is “entertainment industry”. Who are
the actors or comedians? These questions could direct the learner’s thinking
and provide some answers and predictions in line with the authors’ ideas.
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2. The trainer asks them of the benefits they can derive from using the strategy.
The trainer encourages the students in identifying the benefits they can
derive from using the strategy thus:
a) It activates our existing knowledge
b) It enhances understanding and comprehension
c) Self-questioning makes reading materials or learning tasks easy to
recall.
3. The trainer outlines the steps involved in self-questioning after which the
students practise describing the steps while the trainer listens to their
description and gives them correction where there is need. There are five
steps to follow and these are: -
(a) Attend to important clues in the passage. These clues are simply
important props, bold face words, facts or pieces of information that
are central in a reading task.
(b) Create questions in your mind around those clues using “wh” and “h”
questions.
(c) Predict the answers to those questions based on your previous
knowledge, that is guessing what the answers could be
(d) Keep the questions and the answers in their mind that as they read
they search for answers to those questions.
(e) Paraphrase the answers or talk about the answers.
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4. The students are called upon to demonstrate thinking out aloud questioning
strategy before, during and after reading. The trainer helps them read simple
books that the students know and model self-questioning before, during and
after reading. The class divides into small groups and each person in the
group reads a page of a story modeling the think out loud questioning as
they read. Each group works to come up with three questions in each of the
questioning categories of (fact, reflective and opinion)
The trainer listens to each group’s discussion and scaffolds whenever
necessary. Once the questions are completed, the groups swap questions and
answer them to model question formation and to check their understanding of their
reading passage.
Evaluation:
a) Explain the concept of self-questioning.
b) Discuss the benefits of learning the strategy.
c) Describe the steps involved in self-questioning.
d) Demonstrate self-questioning before, during and after reading.
WEEK 2 / SESSION 4
Time: 40 Minutes
Objective: - At the end of the session, the students should be able to: -
(a) Scan through a given passage to find the key words in the passage.
(b) Use strategy to identify the main ideas in a paragraph.
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(c) Use the strategy to identify information that supports the main ideas.
(d) Make valid inferences from the words and sentences of the passage where
the ideas are not categorically stated.
(e) Take turns in groups being the discussion leader.
Activities:
1. The trainer with the students analyzes the key words in a given passage
stating their meaning as they relate to the passage. Students are encouraged
to illustrate by providing examples that will illustrate those key words. For
example, as it relates to the passage on “Entertainment industry”, those
actors and comedians are the people used by commercial institutions to
advertise or to popularize their companies and entertain viewers. Students
with the help of the trainer find analogies that will make the information
clearer. They also compare and contrast ideas. They can compare the
popular actors or comedians and the dependants.
2. Trainer assists the students to identify the main ideas in the text and the
supporting ideas. The trainer informs them that the main idea revolves
around the key words or phrases in a text or in the paragraph. Students
identify the main idea in each paragraph and as they elaborate, they make
inferences so as to bring out facts that are not directly stated in the text.
3. Students work in small groups taking turns reading a paragraph and then
summarizing. Each member of the group takes a turn being the discussion
leader. The trainer listens to group discussions and scaffolds as needed. The
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trainer’s goal is to fade his intervention so the students can interpret the text
according to their perceptions. Group members also assist each other with
summarizing skills.
Evaluation:
The trainer asks the students to read through the given passage once more
and do the following:
a) Identify the key words and phrases.
b) Analyze and illustrate these key words using their own examples.
c) State the main ideas and the supporting ideas in the passage.
Putting it all together: -
The students now have experience in using each of the fabulous four
strategies that are used together as part of a comprehensive reading programme to
increase comprehension. From this point the trainer will encourage his subjects to
use all four of the strategies before, during and after reading to deepen
comprehension. The teacher can use these strategies during reading instruction, but
can also employ them to teach sciences, social sciences and humanities concepts
etc. From this point therefore, the students are equipped to participate effectively in
the reciprocal peer tutoring process.
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APPENDIX B
RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING STRATEGY LESSON PLAN
Subject: English Language
Class: SS II
Topic: Reciprocal peer tutoring and comprehension on “the skin”.
Duration: 40 minutes
Date: 9/5/2009
Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1 Explain the reciprocal peer tutoring process.
2 State the benefits of using reciprocal peer tutoring.
3 Participate in the reciprocal peer tutoring process.
4 Answer questions based on the read passage.
Instructional Materials: Photocopies of selected passage on “the skin”, prompt
cards, note cards, dictionaries and paper for note taking.
Instructional Strategies: Explanation, predicting, clarifying, questioning,
summarizing, monitoring and discussion.
Entry Behaviour: The students can use the skills of predicting, clarifying,
questioning and summarizing in some given comprehension passages.
Test of Entry Behaviour: To test the prerequisite knowledge, the teacher writes a
short passage on the chalkboard and requires the students to predict from the title,
what the passage is all about or summarize the passage.
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INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES
STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES
STRATEGIES
STEP I Set Induction
The teacher tells the students a story of an accident that took place recently and asks them to suggest the possible causes of such accidents. He coordinates the students’ responses and then introduces the topic, reciprocal peer tutoring to the whole class.
The students listen to the story, make suggestions and note down the topic of the lesson.
Questioning
STEP II Initial Teaching
The teacher rehearses each of the skills in the reciprocal peer tutoring process, which had already taken a couple of lessons. These skills include: - predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarizing (and monitoring which will be added because of the number of subjects in the groups). He further explains that reciprocal peer tutoring is a teaching/learning strategy in which students, assembled in groups of two or more, are trained to work on a specific academic task. The students work together to prompt, monitor and evaluate each other, while working towards group goals. The teacher supervises rather than participate in the intervention. The teacher further explains that using the “fabulous four” skills of predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing, reciprocal peer tutoring helps to deepen comprehension, thereby ensuring better memory and recall. The strategy can be employed in all subject areas that need reading for comprehension.
The students follow the teacher’s explanation, note important points and ask questions.
Illustration, example explanation and questioning
STEP III Grouping the Students
The teacher puts the students in groups of five through stratified and simple random sampling techniques. The groupings will be boys only group, girls only group, and boys/girls group. The teacher distributes one note card to each member of the groups identifying each person’s unique role: i(a) Predictor/tutor (b) Clarifier (tutee) (c) Questioner (tutee)
The students respond to the grouping arrangement and pick their unique roles as:
(a) Predictor / tutor (b) Clarifier (tutee) (c) Questioner (tutee) (d) Summarizer (tutee) (e) Monitor (tutee/group monitor)
Organization of peer collaboration.
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(d) Summarizer (tutee) (e) Monitor (tutee and group monitor).
STEP IV Practicing the Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Process
The teacher hands over the photocopied comprehension passage to the predictor. The teacher guides them during clarification because the couple of times this strategy is done, the students often won’t volunteer that they don’t know something. So the teacher picks out a word or phrase and asks the group to clarify it. If all members don’t offer to answer the question, then he talks about how the purpose of reading is to gain meaning and if we are not gaining meaning, then we are simply “barking at the print”.
Predicting: The predictor/tutor distributes photocopies of the passage on “the skin” and asks the students in his/her group to read the topic sentence and then predict what the rest of the passage will be about (eg. “Based on the topic sentence, I think the passage will be about …”) The tutor raises the prompt card, which invites the students to read up to a certain point. A bit of variety may be added so they can read silently, to the group, to a partner or in unison. Clarification: The clarifier gives the readers the opportunity to have any unfamiliar words or pronunciations “made clear” using the dictionaries. Questioning: The questioner gets the students to generate the questions at this point. The questions can be answered orally, or depending .on the teacher’s purpose, he might like the group to record their questions and answers. The questions are framed thus: What…? Why…? When…? Where…? How…? The question are aimed at: Unclear parts Puzzling information Connections to other concepts already
learned Motivation of the agent or actors or
characters. For instance, in the passage on “the skin” the questions could be: (a) Why is the skin one
Collaboration predicting, clarifying questioning summarizing monitoring, explanation demonstration discussion.-
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of the most important organs of the body? How does the skin regulate body temperature? Etc. Summarizing: The summarizer highlights the key ideas at this point in reading. This is the perfect point to teach key points, note taking and to some extent paraphrasing. For instance, “would you please say/write a sentence or two to summarize this passage (name).
Monitoring: The group monitor evaluates to determine where scaffolding is needed to help students to be successful in using the peer collaboration strategy.
STEP V Switching of Roles
The teacher supervises and guides if need be The roles in the group then switch one person to the right, for the next selection to be read. The students repeat the process in the next lesson using their new roles.
Evaluation The teacher raises the following questions: - 1) What is the reciprocal peer tutoring process? 2) What are the benefits of using reciprocal peer tutoring? 3) Why are some people black, others white, yellow or
brown? 4) Why is the skin one of the most important organs of the
body?
The students attempt to answer the teacher’s questions.
Questioning discussion and exercise.
Closure The teacher monitors the groups evaluate the extent the objectives have been achieved and help them to take corrective measures based on evaluation of results.
.
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APPENDIX C
RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING STRATEGY LESSON PLAN
Subject: English Language
Class: SS II
Topic: Comprehension on “choosing a career”.
Duration: 40 minutes
Date: 16/5/2009
Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able
to:
1. Use the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy to identify the main ideas
in the passage.
2. Make valid inference from the words or sentences of the passage
where ideas are not categorically stated.
3. Summarize the passage in order to collate the ideas after reading
4. Skim the comprehension passage to find answers to the questions
following the passage.
Instructional Materials: Photocopies of selected passage on “choosing a
career”, prompt cards, note cards, dictionaries and paper for note taking.
Instructional Strategies: Explanation, predicting, clarifying,
questioning, summarizing, monitoring and discussion.
Entry Behaviour: - The students can use the skills of predicting,
clarifying, questioning, summarizing in some given comprehension
passages.
Test of Entry Behaviour: To test the prerequisite knowledge, the teacher
reads a short passage from newspaper cutting and requires the students to
summarize what the passage is all about.
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INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES
STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES
STRATEGIES
STEP I Set Induction
The teacher rehearses each of the skills in reciprocal peer tutoring which include: predicting, clarifying questioning, summarizing (and monitoring). He then introduces the topic for the day, which is “choosing a career”.
The students rehearse the skills used in reciprocal peer tutoring, discussing with the teacher and dialogue between themselves as each student acts in response to another.
Questioning, illustration, examples.
STEP II Grouping the Students
The teacher distributes one note card to each member of the groups identifying each person’s new role after the second selection.
The students pick their roles as: a) Predictor (tutor) b) Clarifier (tutee) c) Questioner (tutee) d) Summarizer (tutee) e) Monitor (tutee and group monitor)
Organization of peer collaboration
STEP III Practicing the Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Process
The teacher hands over the photocopied comprehension passage to the predictor. The teacher guides them during clarification because the couple of times this strategy is done, the students often won’t volunteer that they don’t know something. So, the teacher picks out a word or a phrase and asks the group to clarify it. If all members don’t offer to answer the question, then he reminds them about how the purpose of reading is to gain meaning, and if we are not gaining meaning, then we are simply “barking at the print”.
Predicting: The predictor/tutor distributes photocopies of the passage on “choosing a career” and asks the students in his/her group to read the topic sentence and then predict what the rest of the passage will be about (eg. “Based on the topic sentence, I think the passage will be about …”) The tutor raises the prompt card, which invites the students to read up to a certain point. A bit of variety may be added so they can read silently, to the group, to a partner or in unison. Clarification: The clarifier gives the readers the opportunity to have any unfamiliar words or pronunciations “made clear” using the dictionaries.
Organization of peer collaboration.
196
Questioning: The questioner gets the students to generate the questions at this point. The questions can be answered orally, or depending .on the teacher’s purpose, he might like the group to record their questions and answers. The questions are framed thus: what…? Why...? When…? Where...? How…? The question are aimed at: Unclear parts Puzzling information Connections to other concepts already
learned Motivation of the agent or actors or
characters. For instance, in the passage on “choosing a career”, the questions could be (a) “Why have most schools failed to prepare students for making career choice decisions? (b) What are three factors, which determine an individual’s success in his chosen job? Summarizing: The summarizer highlights the key ideas at this point of reading. The students try to note the key points in the passage and to some extent paraphrase some sentences. For instance, (a) What ideas do most people have about career education? (b) Why are these people frequently wrong? (c) List the factors, which should be considered before choosing a career. Then, drawing from the
197
insight provided by your list, summarize in six sentences the type of information required for choosing a career and the means open to young people for acquiring that formation. The summarizer names individual students in the group as he raises each question to answer such questions. Monitoring: The group monitor evaluates to determine where scaffolding is needed to help students to be successful in using the peer collaboration strategy.
STEP IV Switching of Roles
The teacher supervises and guides, if need be The roles in the group then switch one person to the right for the next selection to be read in the next lesson.
Evaluation The teacher tells the students to go through the passage again and find answers to the following questions:
(1) What is the relationship between a job and a career?
(2) How much information do young people need before choosing a job or a career?
(3) How can young people be helped to get the needed information?
The students attempt the teacher’s questions.
Questioning discussion and exercise.
Closure The teacher monitors the groups evaluate the extent the objectives have been achieved and help them to take corrective measures based on evaluation of results.
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APPENDIX D
RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING STRATEGY LESSON PLAN
Subject: English Language
Class: SS II
Topic: Comprehension on “The age of computers”.
Duration: 40 minutes
Date: 25/5/2009
Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able
to:
1. Use the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy to identify the main
ideas in the passage.
2. Make valid inference from the words or sentences of the
passage where ideas are not categorically stated.
3. Summarize the passage in order to collate the ideas after
reading
4. Skim the comprehension passage to find answers to the
questions following the passage.
Instructional Materials: Photocopies of selected passage on “the age of
computers”, prompt cards, note cards, dictionaries and paper for note
taking.
Instructional Strategies: Explanation, predicting, clarifying,
questioning, summarizing, monitoring and discussion.
Entry Behaviour: - The students can predict, clarify, raise questions, and
summarize some given comprehension passages.
Test of Entry Behaviour: To test the students’ prerequisite knowledge,
the trainer retells a story he heard over the air and the students summarize
what they understand from the story.
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INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES
STRATEGIES
STEP I Set Induction
The teacher requires the students to mention the processes involved in reciprocal peer tutoring as a peer collaboration strategy. He introduces the topic for the day which is “The age of computers”.
The students respond to the teacher’s questions and note down the topic lesson.
Questioning, illustration, examples.
STEP II Grouping the Students
The teacher supervises the students as they pick note cards identifying each person’s new role after the second selection.
The students pick their roles as: a) Predictor (tutor) b) Clarifier (tutee) c) Questioner (tutee) d) Summarizer (tutee) e) Monitor (tutee and group monitor)
Organization of peer collaboration
STEP III Practicing the Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Process
The teacher supervises the predictors/tutors as they collect photocopies of the comprehension passage. He also supervises how they organize the clarification exercise since his intention is to fade out of the intervention, leaving the students to collaborate between themselves as each learner acts in response to another.
Predicting: The predictor/tutor distributes photocopies of the passage on “the age of computers” and asks the students in his/her group to read the topic sentence and then predict what the rest of the passage will be about (eg. “Based on the topic sentence, I think the passage will be about …”) The tutor raises the prompt card, which invites the students to read up to a certain point. A bit of variety may be added so they can read silently, to the group, to a partner or in unison. Clarification: The clarifier gives the readers the opportunity to have any unfamiliar words or
Organization of peer collaboration.
200
pronunciations “made clear” using the dictionaries. Questioning: The questioner gets the students to generate the questions at this point, which may be answered orally or the group might record their questions and answers. The questions are framed thus: Why…? When…? Where...? How…? The questions are aimed at: Unclear parts Puzzling information Connections to other concepts already
learned Motivation of the agent or actors or
characters. For instance, in the passage on “the age of computers”, the questions could be (a) What two categories of use does the computer serve? Give examples of both. (b) Why is the computer a useful aid to men in mathematics instruction? Summarizing: The summarizer highlights the key ideas at this point in reading. The students note the key points in the passage and try to paraphrase some sentences. For instance, (a) In one sentence, summarize the main idea of the passage. (b) Summarize, in five sentences, the main attributes of the computer. The summarizer names individual students in his/her group after raising each question for the student to answer such a question..
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Monitoring: The group monitor evaluates to determine where scaffolding is needed to help students to be successful in using the reciprocal peer tutoring strategy.
STEP IV Switching of Roles
The teacher has faded out from the intervention allowing the students to collaborate between themselves as each learner acts in response to another.
After the above step, it would be noted that every member of the group of five students has participated as a tutor and a tutee as well as serving as a group monitor.
Evaluation The teacher raises the following questions: a) Explain the reciprocal peer tutoring
process. b) Explain the benefits of using reciprocal
peer tutoring strategy. c) Having read the passage, find answers to
the following questions. 1. Why does the writer consider the speeds
of the present day computers startling? 2. What is the chief contribution of the
computer to man? 3. In one sentence, state the main idea of
the passage. 4. Summarize in five sentences, the main
attributes of the computer.
The students respond to the teacher’s questions while the researcher monitors from the background the whole process.
Questioning discussion and exercise.
Conclusion At the end of the entire exercise the teacher encourages the students to continue to pursue learning on their own after the classes using reciprocal peer tutoring skills in their independent learning, because of the benefits involved.
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APPENDIX E
CONVENTIONAL READING STRATEGY
Subject: English Language
Class: SS II
Topic: Comprehension on “The Skin”.
Duration: 40 minutes
Date: 9/5/2009.
Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able
to:
1. Indicate understanding of the factual content of the passage.
2. Identify the main idea in the passage
3. Read and answer questions from the passage.
Instructional Materials: Photocopies of selected passage on “the skin”,
chalk board.
Instructional Strategies: Explanations, illustrations, examples.
Entry Behaviour: The students can read some passages and answer
some questions.
Test of Entry Behaviour: The teacher gives the students a simple
passage to read and answer some questions.
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INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES
STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES
STRATEGIES
STEP I Set Induction
The teacher informs the students of the topic they will read. He treats the new words in the passage and then distributes copies of the photocopied texts to the students.
The students listen to the teacher’s introduction and collect the reading material.
Explanation, listening
STEP II Silent Reading
. The teacher asks the students to read the passage silently to get the gist of the passage.
The students read the passage silently to get the gist of the passage.
Explanation, listening
STEP III Re-reading
The teacher picks some students to read the passage to the whole class, while he keeps himself busy on his table.
The students read the passage either individually or in union.
Illustration.
STEP IV Generation of Questions
The teacher tells the students to say the main idea in the text.
The students try to respond to the teacher’s questions
Questioning
Evaluation The teacher raises the following questions. 1. Mention the main idea in the passage 2. Say what you understand from the passage 3. Answer the questions that follow the
passage
The students try to answer the teacher’s questions.
Questioning and exercises.
Closure The teacher gives the students take home assignment.
The students note the take home assignment.
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APPENDIX F
CONVENTIONAL READING STRATEGY
Subject: English Language
Class: SS II
Topic: Comprehension on “choosing a career”.
Duration: 40 minutes
Date: 16/5/2009.
Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able
to:
1. Indicate understanding of the factual content of the passage.
2. Identify the main idea in the passage
3. Read and answer questions from the passage.
Instructional Materials: Photocopies of selected passage on “choosing a
career”, chalk board.
Instructional Strategies: Explanations, illustrations, examples.
Entry Behaviour: The students can read some passages and answer
some questions.
Test of Entry Behaviour: The teacher gives the students a simple
passage to read and answer some questions.
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INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES
STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES
STRATEGIES
STEP I Set Induction
The teacher informs the students of the topic they will read. He treats the new words in the passage and then distributes copies of the photocopied texts to the students..
The students listen to the teacher’s introduction and collect the reading material.
Explanation, listening
STEP II Silent Reading
The teacher asks the students to read the passage silently to get the gist of the passage.
The students read the passage silently to get the gist of the passage.
Explanation, listening.
STEP III Re-reading
The teacher picks some students to read the passage to the whole class, while he keeps himself busy on his table.
The students read the passage either individually or in union.
Illustration.
STEP IV Generation of Questions
The teacher tells the students to say the main idea in the text.
The students try to respond to the teacher’s questions
Questioning
Evaluation The teacher raises the following questions. 1. Mention the main idea in the passage 2. Say what you understand from the passage 3. Answer the questions that follow the passage
The students try to answer the teacher’s questions.
Questioning and exercises.
Closure The teacher gives the students take home assignment.
The students note the take home assignment.
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APPENDIX G
CONVENTIONAL READING STRATEGY
Subject: English Language
Class: SS II
Topic: Comprehension on “The age of computers”.
Duration: 40 minutes
Date: 25/5/2009.
Specific Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able
to:
1. Indicate understanding of the factual content of the passage.
2. Identify the main idea in the passage
3. Read and answer questions from the passage.
Instructional Materials: Photocopies of selected passage on “The age of
computers”, chalk board.
Instructional Strategies: Explanations, illustrations, examples.
Entry Behaviour: The students can read some passages and answer
some questions.
Test of Entry Behaviour: The teacher gives the students a simple
passage to read and answer some questions.
195 205
INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
TEACHER’S ACTIVITIES
STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES
STRATEGIES
STEP I Set Induction
The teacher informs the students of the topic they will read. He treats the new words in the passage and then distributes copies of the photocopied texts to the students.
The students listen to the teacher’s introduction and collect the reading material.
Explanation, listening
STEP II Silent Reading
The teacher asks the students to read the passage silently to get the gist of the passage.
The students read the passage silently to get the gist of the passage.
Explanation, listening.
STEP III Re-reading
The teacher picks some students to read the passage to the whole class, while he keeps himself busy on his table.
The students read the passage either individually or in union.
Illustration.
STEP IV Generation of Questions
The teacher tells the students to say the main idea in the text.
The students try to respond to the teacher’s questions
Questioning
Evaluation The teacher raises the following questions. 1. Mention the main idea in the passage 2. Say what you understand from the passage 3. Answer the questions that follow the passage
The students try to answer the teacher’s questions.
Questioning and exercises.
Conclusion At the end of the entire exercise, the teacher encourages the students to pursue learning on their own after classes.
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APPENDIX H
LETTER TO TEST OF COMPREHENSION VALIDATORS
Department of Educational Foundations, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am carrying out a research, which requires the assessment of
achievement in English Language of SSS II students. Therefore, a test of
reading comprehension is being developed for the study.
I, therefore, request that you kindly help with the validation of the
test items. I enclose herein a copy of the tests’ blue print and a draft of the
test.
Your contribution will be highly appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Uroko, Jonas Ejike.
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APPENDIX I
THE TEST BLUE PRINT FOR DEVELOPING THE TEST OF
COMPREHENSION (TOC) FORM I
Content Lower order
questions
Higher order
Questions
Total
Narouz’s astonishing experience
Sugar
The problem with Religion in Nigeria
2 ( 1and 2 )
1 ( 5)
1 ( 9)
2 (3 and 4)
3 ( 6, 7 ,and 8)
3 (10, 11 and 12)
4
4
4
Total 4 8 12
APPENDIX J
THE TEST BLUE PRINT FOR DEVELOPING THE TEST OF
COMPREHENSION (TOC) FORM I I
Content Lower order questions
Higher order questions
Total
The disadvantaged learner
The solar system
The housing problem in Nigeria
2 ( 1and 2 )
1 ( 5)
1 ( 9)
2 (3 and 4)
3 ( 6, 7 and 8 )
3 (10, 11 and
12)
4
4
4
Total 4 8 12
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APPENDIX K
GUIDE FOR VALIDATION OF TEST OF COMPREHENSION
FORMS I AND II
1. Examine the two test blue prints to determine whether the test blue
prints and the tests match in terms of the number of test items per
content area and the cognitive level in which the test items were
presented.
2. Examine each item and indicate its suitability for the content and
behaviour it purports to measure.
3. Review the keys and indicate their correctness.
4. Judge the suitability of language and indicate any correction.
5. Review the appropriateness of the distracters.
6. Suggestions for modifications will be highly appreciated.
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APPENDIX L
VALIDATION OF TEST OF COMPREHENSION FORM I
Specific suggestions for modification Source Suggested modification Action taken Item 2 Item 5
Answer to the question to be corrected Hormone to be replaced with insulin
Corrected to read: Narouz thought that he was dreaming because his father wasn’t on the balcony. Suggestion accepted. The suggested modification was done and re-submitted for approval and signature
APPENDIX M
VALIDATION OF TEST OF COMPREHENSION FORM 11
Specific suggestions for modification Source Suggested modification Action taken Item 2 Item 7
Omitted word to be added Question to be recast.
Suggestion accepted. Question recast to read: why does the writer not expect to find life in other planets? The suggested modification was done and re-submitted for approval and signature
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APPENDIX N
TEST OF COMPREHENSION FORM 1
Time Allowed: 40 minutes.
Instructions: Read the following passages carefully and then
answer the questions after them.
Passage I
Narouz’s astonishing experience
On the night in question he must have dozed off for when he woke
up, he found to his surprise that an unknown hand had extinguished the
lights. Brilliant moonlight flooded the room and the balcony; but where
he was sitting, all was dark. He started up. Astonishingly the balcony was
empty. For a moment, Narouz thought that he was dreaming, for never
before had his father gone to bed alone. Yet, standing there in the
moonlight, battling with this sense of incomprehension and doubt, he
heard the pound of the wheelchairs rubber tyres rolling upon the wooden
boards of the invalid’s room.
He crossed the balcony and tiptoed down the corridor in
amazement. The door of his father’s room was open. He peered inside.
The room was full of moonlight. He heard the bump of the wheels upon
the chest of drawers and a scrabble of fingers groping for a knob. Then he
heard a drawer pulled open, and a sense of dismay filled him; for he
remembered that in it was kept the old colt revolver, which belonged to
201
his father. He suddenly found himself unable to move or speak as he
heard the breech snapped open and the unmistakable sound of paper
rustling – a sound immediately interpreted by his memory. Then, the
small precise clicks of the shells slip into the chambers. It was as if he
was trapped in one of those dreams where one is running with all one’s
might and yet unable to move from the same spot. As the breech snapped
home and the weapon was assembled, Narouz gathered himself together
to walk boldly into the room, but found that he could not move. His spine
got pins and needles and he felt the hair bristle up on the back of his neck.
Overcome by one of the horrifying inhibitions of early childhood, he
could do no more than take a single slow step forward and half in the
doorway, his teeth clenched to prevent them from chattering.
The moonlight shone directly on the mirror, and by its reflected
light, he could see his father sitting upright in his chair, confronting his
own image with an expression on his face which Narouz had never seen
before. It was bleak and impassive, and in that ghostly-derived light from
the glass, it looked denuded of all human feeling, picked clean by the
emotions, which had been steadily snapping it. The son watched as if
mesmerized.
Presently, there was a single dry weary sob. Narouz felt tears of
sympathy come into his eyes but still the spell held him; he could neither
move nor speak nor even sob aloud. His father’s head sank down on his
202
breast, and his pistol-hand fell with it until Narouz heard the faint tap of
the barrel on the floor. A long thrilling silence fell in the room, in the
corridor, on the imprisoned blood flow in his heart and veins. A single
mosquito donned. The spell dissolved.
Answer these questions:
1. Why was Narouz surprised when he woke up?
2. Why did Narouz think he was dreaming?
3. What did Narouz do when he heard the noise?
4. Why was Narouz apprehensive?
Passage II
Sugar
The body system is a delicate balance of different substances, each
of which must be kept within certain levels regarded as normal. Above or
below those levels, it may become dangerous for the body and life.
The level of sugar, or glucose, in the body is a very good example.
The generally accepted range of pre-breakfast normal level (technically
termed “fasting blood sugar”) is between 70 and 110 milligrams per 100
milliliters of blood, and when one’s test result is far above this; one is
diagnosed as having diabetes mellitus.
Well, how does one’s blood glucose come to be high? Glucose is
the final breakdown product of digestion of carbohydrates (starchy foods
203
like bread, rice, yam and cassava products) and, therefore, there is bound
to be a lot of it in the body at any given time, where it is used as a source
of energy. Its first step after absorption from the intestines is the liver,
where some of it is stored as glycogen as a reserve for future use, while
the rest is passed on to the blood circulation. And this is the place where
the level must be kept down if the person is not to become diabetic.
To do this, in normal case, is a chemical substance or hormone,
called insulin, produced by an organ, the pancreas. Insulin ensures that
any excess glucose is passed on from the blood into the body cells where
some of it is again stored as glycogen and fat, but the greatest percentage
is broken down to produce energy for the body. But this does not happen,
when, for some reasons, a person is lacking insulin.
Answer these questions:
5. What is insulin?
6. What is the function of glucose?
7. Name three safe ways that the body employs to dispose of excess
glucose.
8. What happens if the pancreas is malfunctioned?
Passage 111
The problem with religion in Nigeria
Since the assertion over a century ago, by the father of
communism, Karl Marx, that religion is the opium of the people, an
204
endless controversy has ensued on whether religion should be a pillar of
public functions or a private affair.
Those who sow a seed of dissension in religion hold tenaciously to
the assertion and adopt it as a faultless ideology while others who believe
that nothing can be successfully achieved without faith in the supreme
creator of all things regard such an assertion as a mere fallacy fabricated
by an infidel. The former group claims that religion is an institution,
which is as old as the world but which should be obliterated or, at least,
restricted because it has adversely affected the development of the world.
The latter group argues that it is religion which has so far sustained
the world because all laws, rules and regulations that govern the conduct
of man anywhere under the sky emanated from religion, and without
these laws, rules, and regulations, the world would have gone into
permanent oblivion. It is, therefore, the recommendation of this latter
group that if the laws, which regulate the public life of mankind, are
directly or indirectly from religion, then religion should continue to be the
main pillar of the public life in any given society.
Here in Nigeria, more than 90% of the population definitely agrees
with the view that religion is the core of culture and should form the main
pillar of our public and private life. But, unfortunately, more than 98% of
such people are dogmatically ignorant of how to practise their religion to
ventilate the society with the breeze of peace and harmony. And to a great
205
extent, the Federal and State Governments, which have never seen any
danger in ignorance, are tacitly encouraging the ignorance of such people.
Each time there is a crisis in the country, be it social, political, or
religious, it is the people who are caught in the violent action or those
suspected to be behind the crisis or the political foes of the rulers that
bear the brunt. The government is often free from blame even when it
fails to prevent the outbreak of violence. Illiteracy seems to compound
the problem, as over 70% of the population cannot read or write and are
unable to understand what actually constitutes a breach of the law.
Nigeria has witnessed several religious crises. The Maitasine
carnage is an example. It is painful that, whenever there is any form of
crises in the country, the government only reacts by setting up a
commission of inquiry. Quite often, such inquiries are used as
instruments for destroying political opponents. In the end, neither the
government nor the people learn any lesson from the findings of such
inquiries.
Many things are responsible for religious crises in Nigeria. Open
air preaching is a major factor. Religionists often barricade the streets and
usurp the front space of other peoples’ houses in the frantic endeavour to
win converts. This is an awful scene, which is possible only in Nigeria.
People should preach inside the church or mosque or hire halls for their
religious activities.
206
Some see religion as a lucrative enterprise. This alone shows why
people are ready to kill themselves in the name of religion. If the rate at
which Nigerians troop into religion these days is a reflection of their
godliness, why is the rate of crime rapidly increasing? Why are some of
the religious leaders caught in criminal act?
People should practise religion honestly. They should not use
religion for achieving political goals or material benefits. It is only in this
way that they can prove their sincerity to God, their creator.
Answer these questions:
9. Who is the father of communism?
10. Which people bear the brunt of crises in Nigeria?
11. What is government attitude to crises in Nigeria?
12 Summarize in two sentences the main points of the controversy
that religion is the opium of the people.
207
APPENDIX O
SCORING GUIDE FOR TEST OF COMPREHENSION (TOC)
FORM 1
MODEL ANSWERS WITH COMMENTS
Passage 1
1. Narouz was surprised when he work up because the lights were
out. (8arks)
2. Narouz thought that he was dreaming because his father wasn’t
on the balcony. (9arks)
3. He cautiously approached his father’s room. (8arks)
4. Narouz was apprehensive because he thought that his father
was going to kill himself. (8arks)
Passage II
5. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas. (8arks)
6. Glucose is a source of energy. (8arks)
7. The writer thinks that excess glucose can be disposed of by
passing it from the blood into the body cell. (3marks)
ii storing it as glycogen and fat. (3marks)
iii breaking it down to produce energy for the body. (3marks)
8 If the pancreas is malfunctioned, enough, insulin will not be
produced, and one may be diagnosed as having diabetes mellitus.
208
Passage III
9. The father of communism is Karl Marx. (8marks)
10. The people who bear the brunt of crises in Nigeria are those caught
in the violent action, those suspected to be behind the crises or
political foes. (8marks)
11. Government attitude to crises in Nigeria is ambivalent since
government only reacts by setting up commission of inquiry.
(8 marks)
12. Two main points of controversy that religion is the opium of the
people are:
i It is an ideology
ii religion has adversely or negatively affected the world.
(10marks)
209
APPENDIX P
TEST OF COMPREHENSION FORM II
Time Allowed: 40 minutes.
Instructions: Read the following passages carefully and then
answer the questions after them.
Passage I
The disadvantaged learner
It has been found by researchers (in education) that the odds are
stacked high against the reader from a deprived socio-economic
background. A reader, whose parents are illiterate, whose parents earn
low income, who has no access to the electronic media, and who has no
educated siblings or peers to learn from, faces an uphill task in his
educational career. The task is even more difficult if the learner lives in
obscure rural area for he is then cut off from modern civilization.
The learner from an academically enriched background, whose
parents are well educated and financially stable, and who has constant
access to the electronic media, has a head start over his deprived counter-
part from the village. Therefore, it is unfair that learners from different
backgrounds should face the same competition for admission into higher
institutions, or for employment opportunities, since nobody determines
their background.
210
Unfair as the practice may be, it is not easy to work out an
alternative system. In the first place, distinguishing between students
from academically enriched and educationally deprived backgrounds and
reserving some places for the latter, would amount to double standards.
Indeed, such a policy would inevitably engender a number of
malpractices on the part of the candidates. Moreover, formulating a
policy by which learners from educationally deprived background are
given special employment opportunities would tend to play down the
practice of selection on the basis of merit.
It does appear that the way out is to minimize the odds against
which the less advantaged learners have to struggle. If rural communities
are improved, and if conscious efforts are made to reduce the gaps
between the rich and the poor, much would have been done to help the
socio-economically disadvantaged learners overcome some of the odds
against them.
Answer these Questions:
1. Mention three factors that distinguish the two classes of learners
described in the passage.
2. Which one word in the first paragraph shows that the writer based
the article on facts and not on speculation?
3. Why does the writer say that the practice is unfair?
211
4. Give reasons why the writer thinks that there is no alternative to the
present practice.
Passage II
The Solar System
The sun, the planets, and the moons form the major part of the
solar system. But there are a number of smaller, minor bodies, which also
belong to it and travel, like the planets, the orbits around the sun. These
are the asteroids, meteors, and comets. The sun and all these bodies travel
through space as a unit of “family” held together by the sun’s
gravitational attraction. The warmth and light of the sun are the most
important things to us on earth, for without them; there would be no life
of any kind. The sky would always be inky dark and the temperature
would be deadly cold. The fiery sun is a great globe of the hot, glowing
gases. We can call it our star, for that is what it is-just another star. As far
as stars go, it is very ordinary, being neither particularly big nor
particularly bright. There are stars very much bigger and brighter but
there are also many that are much smaller and dimmer.
What are the prospects of life elsewhere in the solar system,
besides earth? Are there any Mercurians, Venusians or Martians? From
our present knowledge of the conditions on other planets, we can say that
it is most unlikely that there is any other life, as we know it.
212
Life as we know it definitely could not exist on Mercury because it
is too hot. And Jupiter and the other planets are much too cold. The only
planets where life as we know it has been considered possible are Venus
and Mars. But the available evidence from the latest Russian and
American space probe made the possibility remoter.
What about life outside the solar system? The sun is but one of
millions of stars in the heavens. It would be incredible if there were no
other stars with planetary systems like ours. It is likely that there is within
the universe, planets on which conditions are much like those on earth.
Why then should there not be other life elsewhere similar to our own?
Why not indeed? This is a mystery, which we might one day solve, when
we learn more about how life began and when, if even, we can travel to
the stars.
Answer these questions:
5. Why is the sun important to us on earth?
6. What would happen if there were no sun?
7. Why does the writer not expect to find life in other planets?
8. Summarize in one short sentence the writer’s viewpoints on the
prospects of life elsewhere in the universe.
213
Passage III
The Housing Problem in Nigeria
Housing is certainly one of the basic necessities of man. Since the
1970’s however, when rural dwellers migrated to the urban areas in large
numbers, housing has become a problem in Nigeria. This is further
exacerbated by the upsurge in the number of people from ECOWAS
countries coming to stay in the country. Increasing the country’s
population in a manner that surpasses the rate at which houses are built,
and the relative increase in cash-flow which makes Nigerians desire
better living conditions.
The importance of housing is so universally acknowledged that the
United Nations declared 1986 the International year of shelter. Even one
of the major political parties in the Second Republic made the building of
houses one of the cardinal programmes. But so far, all efforts made,
including building of housing estates by the government, have not solved
the problem of inadequate housing. How could this be solved?
An architect, Chief Olayiwola Fadairo, wants the government to
limit its role to the provision of amenities and making available, at cheap
prices, various building materials like cement, roofing sheets, asbestos, as
well as finishing materials such paints and tiles. Chief Olayiwola, who
wants the government to build and sell its houses at reasonable prices,
214
also feels that the Land Use decree needs to be looked into with a view of
making it easier for people to obtain land.
But Mr. L. O. Etti, an insurance executive, wants the government
to wash its hands off the building of houses completely. “The government
should leave the building of houses to private individuals. All it should do
is to concern itself with the provision of amenities such as land, roads,
electricity and telephone, among others”. Mr. Etti sees the current
increases in the prices of cement as the result of the closure of cement
factories due to non-availability of raw materials or machine spare parts.
He, therefore, wants the government to ensure that the provision of
materials to produce building items will be made much easier. He says
that the Land Use Decree should be abrogated. “Individual landowners or
families should be allowed to sell their land or make use of it the way
they deem fit”.
Ayodeji Adekunle shares Etti’s view. Adekunle, a biochemistry
lecturer at the University of Ibadan and a member of the constituent
assembly, said that government should not be involved in building
houses. “All the government should do is to make prices of building
materials cheap and within reach. Insurance and other financial
institutions like mortgage banks can give people loans to build houses.
This is how I built my own house, and I’m still paying mortgage on it”.
215
Mr. Ago Areo, a publisher, shares this view, though partially. To
him, apart from making materials available the government should set up
corporations that will build houses and hire them out, as is the practice in
the United Kingdom. “If this is done, problems like undue fluctuation in
prices of building materials, as well as difficulties people encounter in the
process of building houses, would be greatly minimized if not totally
removed.
Mr. Ajayi Ekanola, the West District area manager of Wema Bank,
does not want the government to wash its hands off the building of
houses. Also, he does not see as proper, the idea of restricting building of
houses to a particular stratum of government – federal, state or local. “All
of them should co-operate,” he said.
Answer these Questions
9 How does the writer back up his opinion that housing is one of the
basic necessities of man?
10 Name three of the people whom the writer consults, and evaluate their
credential for holding their opinions.
11 What is the majority opinion about the role of government in the
solution of the housing problem?
12 In one sentence summarize the central idea of the passage.
216
APPENDIX Q
SCORING GUIDE FOR TEST OF COMPREHENSION (TOC) FORM 1I
MODEL ANSWERS WITH COMMENTS
Passage I
1. The factors that distinguish the two classes of learners are:
i. Level of parents’ education (3 marks)
ii. Parents’ financial ability or economic status (3 marks)
iii. Access to electronic media (3 marks)
Notes: Two other factors are mentioned in the passage viz:
i. Access to educated siblings.
ii. Place of residence (whether rural or urban).
Any three would be sufficient.
2. “Researches” (8 marks)
The rubric demands that only one word should be quoted. So,
answers such as “it has been found by researchers” would not be
acceptable.
3. The writer thinks that the present practice is unfair because
disadvantaged and privileged learners are made to face the same
competition. (8 marks)
4. The writer thinks that there is no alternative because
217
i. Giving special consideration to job seekers from deprived
background would undermine merit. (4 marks)
ii. Giving special concession to deprived learners in higher
institutions would lead to malpractice among candidates and
these amount to using double standards (4 marks)
Passage II
5. The sun is important to us on earth because of warmth and
light of the sun. (8 marks)
6. If there were no sun, the sky would have been always inky
black and the temperature deadly cold. (8 marks)
7. The writer does not expect to find life in other planets because
of available evidence from Russian and American probe. (9 marks)
8. The writer believes that the prospect of life elsewhere in the
universe is unlikely. (8 marks)
Passage III
9. The importance of housing is so universally acknowledged that the
United Nations declared 1986 the International year of shelter.
(8 marks)
10.a Chief Olayiwola Fadairo – An architect; designs and quantifies the
cost of buildings.
b. Mr. L. O. Etti – An insurance executive guaranties security to built
houses.
c. Ayodeji Adekunle – A law maker. (10 marks)
11. Abrogating the Land Use Decree and washing its hands off the
building of houses completely. (8 marks)
12. The role of government in solving the housing problem in Nigeria.
(8 marks)
218
APPENDIX R
THE CALCULATION OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION AND THE VARIANCE OF THE TOTAL SCORES OF TEST OF
COMPREHENSION FORM I
X F FX X X – X (X – X)2 ∑ƒ(X – X)2 72 1 72 61.9 10.1 102.01 102.01 74 1 74 61.9 12.1 146.41 146.41 54 1 54 61.9 -7.9 62.41 62.41 75 2 150 61.9 13.1 171.61 343.22 57 1 57 61.9 -4.9 24.01 24.01 64 1 64 61.9 2.1 4.41 4.41 49 1 49 61.9 -12.9 166.41 166.41 60 2 120 61.9 -1.9 3.61 7.22 67 1 67 61.9 5.1 26.01 26.01 79 1 79 61.9 17.1 292.41 292.41 70 1 70 61.9 8.1 65.61 65.61 76 2 152 61.9 14.1 198.81 397.62 62 1 62 61.9 0.1 0.01 0.01 59 1 59 61.9 -2.9 8.41 8.41 51 1 51 61.9 -10.9 118.81 118.81 61 1 61 61.9 -0.9 0.81 0.81 52 1 52 61.9 -9.9 98.01 98.01 48 1 48 61.9 -13.9 193.21 193.21 58 1 58 61.9 -3.9 15.21 15.21 77 1 77 61.9 15.1 228.01 228.01 55 1 55 61.9 -6.9 47.61 47.61 47 1 47 61.9 -14.9 222.01 222.01 78 1 78 61.9 16.1 259.21 259.21 43 2 86 61.9 -18.9 357.21 714.42 73 1 73 61.9 11.1 123.21 123.21 42 1 42 61.9 -19.9 396.01 396.01
30 1857
∑ƒ(X – X)2 = 4062.7
∑fx = 1857 X = ∑fx ∑f X = 1857 30 X = 61.9
219
SD = ∑f( X – X )2
N – 1
= 4062.7 30 – 1
= 4062.7 29 = 140.09 SD = 11.84 Variance = 140.09 = 140.1
Determining the estimate reliability of the instrument (TOC Form
I) using Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability co-efficient.
α (Alpha) = n ∑S12
n-1 Sx2
Where:
S12 = Variance of a single item of the instrument
N = Number of items of the instrument Sx
2 = Variance of the total score S = 23.68 N = 12 Sx
2 = 140.1 α = n ∑S1
2 n-1 Sx
2
= 12 23.68 12 – 1 140.1
12 (1 – 169022127) 11
= (1.090909091) (0.830977872) = 0.906521316 = 0.91
1 -
1 -
1 -
220
APPENDIX S
COMPUTATION OF STABILITY ESTIMATE FOR TEST OF COMPREHENSION (TOC) FORM I USING PEARSON’S PRODUCT MOMENT CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
Pearson’s r = rxy = N.xy - (x.y) [N.x2 – (x)2]. [N.y2 – (y)2] rxy = 30 x 255353 – (2653 x 2797) [30 x 243355 – (2653)2] x [30 x 270327 – (2797)2] rxy = 7660590 – 7420441 [730065 – 7038409] x [8109810 – 7823209]
rxy = 240149 262241 x 286601 rxy = 240149 274150.566 rxy = 0.87597 rxy = 0.88
221
APPENDIX T
SCORES FOR COMPUTATION OF KEN DALL’S COEFFICIENT OF CONCORDANCE
Subjects Rater
1
Rater
2
Rater
3
Rater
4
Rater
5
Rj Rj-∑Rj
N
(Rj - ∑Rj)2
N 1 9 9 9 8 10 45 1.87 3.48 2 16 16 16 15 17 80 -36.87 1359.15 3 3 5 6 5 6 25 18.13 328.82 4 5 6 5 11 8 35 8.13 66.15 5 9 10 10 11 9 49 -5.87 34.42 6 14 14 14 16 17 75 -31.87 1015.48 7 4 4 3 6 7 24 19.13 366.08 8 6 7 6 7 8 34 9.13 83.42 9 2 3 3 3 4 15 28.13 791.48 10 1 2 2 2 3 10 33.13 1097.82 11 14 10 15 16 17 72 -28.87 833.28 12 12 13 13 12 10 60 -16.87 284.48 13 12 10 11 10 12 55 -11.87 140.82 14 8 8 8 6 10 40 3.13 9.82 15 7 4 6 6 5 28 15.13 229.02 ∑Rj
= 647 (Rj - ∑Rj)2
N = 6643.72
W = S 1/12 K2 (N3 – N)
Where K = the number of raters N = number of subjects S = ∑(Rj - ∑Rj )2 N
W = 6643.72 1 x 52 (153 – 15) 12 = 6643.72 x 12 25 (3375 – 15) = 79724.64 25 (3360)
= 79724.64 84000
= 0.949
= 0.95
222
APPENDIX U
THE CALCULATION OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION AND THE VARIANCE OF THE TOTAL SCORES OF TEST OF
COMPREHENSION FORM II
X F FX X X - X (X – X )2 ∑f (X – X )2 70 2 140 62.97 7.03 49.42 98.84 74 1 74 62.97 11.03 121.66 121.66 54 1 54 62.97 -8.97 80.46 80.46 75 2 150 62.97 12.03 144.72 289.44 58 2 116 62.97 -4.97 24.70 49.40 64 1 64 62.97 1.03 1.06 1.06 50 2 100 62.97 -12.97 168.22 336.44 60 3 180 62.97 -2.97 8.892 26.46 67 1 67 62.97 4.03 16.24 16.24 79 1 79 62.97 16.03 256.96 256.96 72 1 72 62.97 9.03 81.54 81.54 76 2 152 62.97 13.03 169.78 339.56 62 1 62 62.97 -0.97 0.94 0.94 59 1 59 62.97 -3.97 15.76 15.76 52 1 52 62.97 -10.97 120.34 120.34 48 2 96 62.97 -14.97 224.10 448.20 77 1 77 62.97 14.03 196.84 196.84 55 1 55 62.97 -7.97 63.52 63.52 78 1 78 62.97 15.03 225.90 225.90 44 1 44 62.97 -18.97 359.86 359.86 73 1 73 62.97 10.03 100.60 100.63 45 1 45 62.97 -17.97 322.92 322.92
30 1889
∑f (X – X )2
= 3552.97
∑fx = 1889 X = ∑fx ∑f X 1889 30 X 62.97
223
SD = ∑f(X – X )2 N – 1 = 3552.97 30 – 1 = 3552.97 29 = 122.52 = 11.07
Variance = 122.52
Determining the estimate reliability of the instrument (TOC) Form
II) using Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Co-efficient:
α (Alpha) = n ∑S12
n-1 Sx2
Where: S12 = Variance of a single item of the instrument.
N = Number of Items of the Instrument. Sx
2 = Variance of the total Rating. Sx
2 = 22.14 N = 12 Sz
2 = 122.52 α = n ∑S1
2 n-1 Sx
2
= 12 33.4
12-1 181.46
= 12 (1 – 0.18068) 11 = (1.090909091) (0.819315965)
= 0.893799
= 0.89
1 -
1 -
1 -
224
APPENDIX V
COMPUTATION OF STABILITY ESTIMATE FOR TEXT OF COMPREHENSION (TOC) FORM II USING PEARSON’S
PRODUCT CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
Pearson’s r = rxy = N.xy - (x.y) [N.x2 – (x)2] . [N.y2 – (y)2] rxy = 30 x 255053 – (2643 x 2787) [30 x 243055 – (2643)2] x [30 x 270027 – (2787)2] rxy = 7651590 – 7366041 [7291650 – 6985449] x [8100810 – 7767369] rxy = 285549 306201 x 333441 rxy = 285549 319530.8555 rxy = 0.893653 rxy = 0.89
225
APPENDIX W
SCORES FOR COMPUTATION OF KEN DALL’S COEFFICIENT OF CONCORDANCE
Subjects Rater 1
Rater 2
Rater 3
Rater 4
Rater 5
Rj Rj-∑Rj N
(Rj - ∑Rj)2
N 1 10 9 9 8 10 46 1.8 3.24 2 15 16 15 15 17 78 33.8 1142.44 3 14 5 6 5 7 37 -7.2 51.84 4 5 6 5 11 8 35 -9.2 84.64 5 10 10 10 11 9 50 5.8 33.64 6 14 14 14 16 17 75 30.8 948.64 7 4 4 3 6 7 24 -20.2 408.04 8 6 7 6 7 8 34 -10.2 104.04 9 3 3 3 3 4 16 -28.2 8795.24 10 1 2 2 2 3 10 -34.2 1169.64 11 14 10 15 16 16 71 26.8 718.24 12 12 13 13 12 11 61 16.8 282.24 13 12 10 11 10 12 55 10.8 116.64 14 8 9 8 7 10 42 -2.2 4.84 15 7 5 6 6 5 29 24.6 605.16 ∑Rj
= 663 (Rj - ∑Rj)2
N = 6468.52
W = S 1/12 K2 (N3 – N) Where K = the number of raters N = number of subjects S = ∑(Rj - ∑Rj )2 N
W = 6468.52 1 x 52 (153 – 15) 12 = 6468.52 x 12 25 (3375 – 15) = 77622.24 25 (3360)
= 77622.24 84000 = 0.924074285 = 0.92
226
APPENDIX X
COMPUTATION OF THE MEASURE OF EQUIVALENCE/RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TESTS OF
COMPREHENSION (TOC) FORMS I AND II, USING PEARSON’S PRODUCT MOMENT CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
Pearson’s r = rxy = N.xy - (x.y) [N.x2 – (x)2] . [N.y2 – (y)2] rxy = 30 x 252353 – (2553 x 2697) [30 x 240355 – (2553)2] x [30 x 267327 – (2697)2] rxy = 7570590 – 6885441 [7210650 – 6517809] x [8019810 – 7273809] rxy = 685149 692841 x 746001 rxy = 685149 718929.815 rxy = 0.95301236 rxy = 0.95
227
APPENDIX Y
LETTER TO STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION INTEREST RATING SCALE VALIDATORS
Department of Educational Foundations University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am carrying out a research, which requires the assessment of the
feelings of SSS II students about studying. Therefore, students’ reading
comprehension interest rating scale is being developed for the study.
I, therefore, request that you kindly help with the validation of the
rating scale items. I enclose herein a draft of the rating scale.
Yours faithfully,
Uroko, Jonas Ejike.
APPENDIX Z
GUIDE FOR VALIDATION OF STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION INTEREST RATING SCALE
ITEMS
1. Examine each item and indicate its suitability for the content and
behaviour it purports to measure.
2. Judge the suitability of language and indicate any correction.
3. Review the keys and indicate their correctness.
4. Suggestions for modifications will be highly appreciated.
5. Many items were generated so that the unsuitable ones can easily
be replaced.
228
APPENDIX Za
STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION INTEREST RATING SCALE (SRCIRS)
Dear Respondents,
This reading interest scale is intended to enable you express your
feelings about studying. In this regard, no statement is right or wrong.
Therefore, you should feel free to give your honest answers, which shall
be highly appreciated.
Instructions
Read each statement carefully. There are four columns on the right
hand side of the paper: Strongly agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (DA),
and Strongly Disagree (SD). If you definitely agree, with the statement,
tick column 1 (Strongly Agree). If you mostly agree, tick column 2. If
you do not really agree, tick column 3. If you certainly do not agree, tick
column 4.
You can tick like this (x) or like this (). Remember that only one
tick per sentence is permitted.
229
STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION INTEREST RATING SCALE (SRCIRS)
SA A D SD 1 I love to be identified as a student of any subject that requires
reading for comprehension.
2 I do not like going to school when difficult subjects are taught in school.
3 I encourage my friends to take interest in subjects that require reading for comprehension.
4 I like telling my friends and parents what I leant from reading 5 Discussing read materials in difficult subject areas makes me
unhappy.
6 When the teacher is teaching subjects that require reading for comprehension, I like to go away.
7 I do not like attempting questions asked in comprehension passages.
8 I prefer reading novels and magazines to reading texts that require reading for comprehension.
9 I respect teachers who teach subjects that require creative thinking more than other teachers.
10 I feel scared whenever I read any thing that is not enjoyable. 11 I compete with other students for higher scores in reading
comprehension exercises.
12 I like to remember well information presented in class and textbooks.
13 I like to use the library to get information for class assignments. 14 I do not like to get my self to study when there are other
interesting things to do.
15 I enjoy finishing my homework assignment on time. 16 I do serious studies only when I have examinations. 17 I feel nervous and uncomfortable when I am expected to read. 18 I concentrate and am not easily distracted when I am studying. 19 I am always eager to learn new ways of reading for
comprehension.
20 I usually urge my parents to buy me books to improve my knowledge base.
21 Reading for comprehension is dull and boring. 22 I prefer watching television programmes and films to reading
recommended texts.
23 Reading is enjoyable and stimulating to me. 24 I like to solve new problems through extensive reading in any subject.
230
APPENDIX Zb
THE CALCULATION OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION AND THE VARIANCE OF THE STUDENTS READING
COMPREHENSION INTEREST RATING SCALE (SRCIRS)
X F FX X X – X (X – X )2 ∑f (X – X )2
45 2 90 44.17 0.83 0.69 1.38 31 2 62 44.17 13.17 173.45 346.90 55 1 55 44.17 10.83 117.29 117.29 40 2 80 44.17 -4.17 17.39 34.78 39 1 39 44.17 -5.17 26.73 26,73 23 1 23 44.17 -21.17 448.17 448.17 21 2 42 44.17 -23.17 536.85 1073.70 36 1 36 44.17 -8.17 66.75 66.75 44 2 88 44.17 0.17 0.03 0.06 62 1 62 44.17 17.83 317.91 317.91 57 2 114 44.17 12.83 164.61 329.22 38 1 38 44.17 -6.17 38.07 38.07 51 2 102 44.17 6.83 46.65 93.30 43 1 43 44.17 -1.17 1.37 1.37 69 1 69 44.17 24.83 616.53 616.53 35 2 70 44.17 -9.17 84.09 168.18 42 1 42 44.17 -2.17 4.71 4.71 29 1 29 44.17 -15.17 230.13 230.13 56 1 56 44.17 11.83 139.95 139.95 74 1 74 44.17 29.83 889.83 889.83 61 1 61 44.17 16.83 283.25 283.25 50 1 50 44.17 5.83 33.99 33.99
30 1325
∑f (X – X )2
= 5262.2
∑fx = 1325 X = ∑fx ∑f = 1325 30 = 41.1666 = 41.17
231
SD = ∑f(X – X) 2 N – 1 = 5262.2 30 – 1 = 5262.2 29 = 181.46 = 13.47 Variance = 181.46
Determining the estimate of reliability of the instrument (SRCIRS) using
the Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient.
α (Alpha) = n 1 - ∑S12
n-1 Sx2
Where: S12 = Variance of a single item of the instrument.
N = Number of Items of the Instrument.
Sx2 = Variance of the total Rating.
S12 = 26.94
N = 24 Sx
2 = 181.46
α =
2
211
1 XSS
nn
=
46.18194.26
1124
24
= 14846.01
2324
= (1.043478) (0.851537528)
= 0.888560677
= 0.89
232
APPENDIX Zc
COMPUTATION OF STABILITY ESTIMATE FOR STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION INTEREST RATING
SCALE USING PEARSON’S PRODUCT MOMENT CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
Pearson’s r = rxy = N.xy - (x.y) [N.x2 – (x)2] . [N.y2 – (y)2] rxy = 30 x62944 – (1301 x 1325) [30 x 62260 – (1301)2] x [30 x 63783 – (1325)2] rxy = 1888320 – 1723825 [1867800 – 1692601] x [1913490 – 1755625] rxy = 164495 175199 x 157865
rxy = 164495 166306.3 rxy = 09891
rxy = 0.99
233
APPENDIX Zd
LETTER TO STUDENTS’ SELF-EFFICACY RATING SCALE VALIDATORS
Department of Educational Foundations, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am carrying out a research, which requires the understanding of
the kind of things that are difficult for SS II students and hence affect
their confidence level. Therefore, Students’ Self-Efficacy Rating Scale is
being developed for the study.
I, therefore, request that you kindly help with the validation of the
rating scale items. I enclose herein a draft of the rating scale.
Yours faithfully,
Uroko, Jonas Ejike.
234
APPENDIX Ze
GUIDE FOR VALIDATION OF STUDENTS’ SELF-EFFICACY RATING SCALE ITEMS
1. Examine each item and indicate its suitability for the content and
behaviour it purports to measure.
2. Judge the suitability of language and indicate any correction.
3. Review the keys and indicate their correctness.
4. Suggestions for modifications will be highly appreciated.
5. Many items were generated so that the unsuitable ones can easily
be replaced.
APPENDIX Zf STUDENTS’ SELF-EFFICACY RATING SCARCE (SSERS)
Dear Respondent,
This questionnaire is designed to help us get a better understanding
of your confidence level in performing some academic tasks. Please rate
how certain you are that you can do each of the things described below by
ticking the appropriate columns. Your answers will be kept strictly
confidential and will not be identified by name.
Rate your degree of self-efficacy by ticking a number from 1 to 4
using the scale given below: – (1) Not at all (2) very little, (3) some
degree, (4) a great deal.
You can tick like this (x) or like this (√). Remember that only one
tick per sentence is permitted.
235
STUDENTS’ SELF-EFFICACY RATING SCALE (SSERS) Not
at a
ll
Ver
y lit
tle
Som
e de
gree
A g
reat
dea
l
1 2 3 4 1. I get teachers to help me when I do not understand an
aspect of my schoolwork.
2. I get my fellow students to help me when I get stock in my schoolwork.
3. When I study mathematics, I find it easy to comprehend the task demand.
4. Understanding science passages is always difficult for me.
5. I find reading science passages interesting. 6. I work hard to get a good grade even when I don’t like a
class.
7. Even when the study materials are boring and uninteresting, I keep working until I am finished.
8. I work on practice exercises and answer end-of-chapter questions even when I don’t have to.
9. I choose not to engage in difficult academic tasks in school.
10. I elect not to take preparation mathematical courses even when I believe such courses lead to a comfy lifestyle.
11. I work well in a group. 12. I shy away from making social contacts with the opposite
sex even though I believe such contacts would perhaps affect potential opportunities later in life.
13. I finish any homework assignment by dead lines. 14. I get myself to study even when there are other interesting
things to do.
15. I always concentrate on my school subjects during class. 16. I take good notes during class instructions. 17. I use the library to get information for class assignments. 18. I plan my schoolwork for the day. 19. I organize my schoolwork. 20. I arrange a place to study without distractions.
236
APPENDIX Zg
THE CALCULATION OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION AND THE VARIANCE OF THE TOTAL SELF-EFFICACY RATING OF
THE SSERS
X F FX X X - X (X – X )2 ∑f (X – X )2 54 2 108 38.9 15.1 228.01 456.02 29 1 29 38.9 -9.9 98.01 98.01 42 2 84 38.9 3.1 9.61 19.22 22 2 44 38.9 -16.9 285.61 571.22 27 1 27 38.9 -11.9 141.61 141.61 30 2 60 38.9 -8.9 7.21 158.42 55 1 55 38.9 16.1 159.21 159.21 35 1 35 38.9 -3.9 15.21 15.21 28 2 56 38.9 -10.9 118.81 237.62 44 1 44 38.9 5.1 26.01 26.01 48 1 48 38.9 9.1 82.81 82.81 45 1 45 38.9 6.1 37.21 37.21 37 1 37 38.9 -1.9 3.61 3.61 56 1 56 38.9 17.1 292.41 292.41 65 1 65 38.9 26.1 681.21 681.21 32 1 32 38.9 -6.9 47.61 47.61 38 1 38 38.9 -0.9 0.81 0.81 34 1 34 38.9 -4.9 24.01 24.01 25 1 25 38.9 -13.9 193.21 193.21 46 1 46 38.9 7.1 50.41 50.41 47 1 47 38.9 8.1 65.61 65.61 31 2 62 38.9 -7.9 62.41 124.82 40 1 40 38.9 1.1 1.21 1.21 51 1 51 38.9 12.1 146.41 146.41
30 1168
∑f (X – X )2
= 3633.9 ∑fx = 1168 X = ∑fx ∑f
= 1168 30
= 38.9
237
SD = ∑f(X – X) 2 N – 1 = 3633.9 30 – 1 = 3633.9 29 = 125.31 = 11.19
Variance = 125.31
Determining the estimate of reliability of the instrument (SSERS)
using the Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient.
α (Alpha) = n 1 - ∑S12
n-1 Sx2
Where: S12 = Variance of a single Item of the instrument.
N = Number of Items of the Instrument.
Sx2 = Variance of the Total Rating.
S12 = 22.38
N = 20 Sx
2 = 125.31 α = n 1 - ∑S1
2 n-1 Sx
2
= 20 1 – 22.38
20-1 125.31 = 20 (1 – 0.178597079)
19 = (1.05263) (0.82140292) = 0.864633356 = 0.86
238
APPENDIX Zh
COMPUTATION OF STABILITY ESTIMATE FOR STUDENTS’ SELF-EFFICACY RATING SCALE USING PEARSON’S PRODUCT MOMENT CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
Pearson’s r = rxy = N.xy - (x.y) [N.x2 – (x)2] . [N.y2 – (y)2] rxy = 30 x 43064 – (1054 x 1072) [30 x 43120 – (1054)2] x [30 x 43452 – (1072)2] rxy = 1291920 – 1129888 [1293600 – 1110916] x [1303560 - 1149184 rxy = 162032 182684 x 154376 rxy = 162032 167934.586
rxy = 0.96485
rxy = 0.96
239
APPENDIX Zi
LIST OF SCHOOLS USED FOR THE STUDY AND DISTRIBUTION OF SUBJECTS INTO THE EXPERIMENTAL
AND CONTROL GROUPS SCHOOLS NO
Experimental Group
1 St Patrick’s Comprehensive Secondary School, Obollo
Eke
43
2 Comprehensive Community Secondary School Ekposhi,
Enugu-Ezike
45
TOTAL 88
Control Group
3 Community Secondary School, Obollo Etiti 42
4 Community Secondary School, Uda, Enugu-Ezike 44
TOTAL 86
TOTAL 174
